In October, 1997, the Bamberg
Symphony *big band played a series of concerts in Aschaffenburg, Bamberg and Fulda, with
the world-famous Jiggs Whigham as featured soloist in Love Walked In (Gershwin-Paul
Ferguson), You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To (Cole Porter-Manny Album), Buckeye
Blues (Paul Ferguson), Absolutely Knot (Jiggs Whigham) and with the rhythm
section, When Sunny Gets Blue (Fisher-Segal). The band played compositions of Bob
Brookmeyer, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Peter Herbolzheimer and others.
The Bamberg Symphony *big band, under the leadership of Till Weser, is
comprised of members of the renowned Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, as well as professional
jazz musicians. They have dedicated themselves to the development of a symphonic big band
sound that enables them to perform compositions on the periphery of the big band genre
such as Ebony concerto by Stravinsky or Prelude, Fugue and Riffs by
Bernstein, as well as pure and classic big band jazz.
A distinctive trademark of the Bamberg Symphony *big band is the
casting of the entire rhythm and brass section through symphonic musicians from the
Bamberg orchestra, whose tonal spectrum and stylistic integrity open new vistas of big
band sound.
The band was thrilled and inspired by its encounter with Jiggs. Carl
Lenthe, a member of the band and also solo trombonist with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra,
took the occasion to talk with Jiggs about crossover trends, styles and contents of music
and many other subjects.
Excerpts from the conversation between Jiggs Whigham and Carl Lenthe,
which took place between the sound check and concert in Fulda, are presented here without
the trumpet calisthenics in the background.
Lenthe: Jiggs, it has been a fantastic experience having you
here for these days, hearing you play and enjoying your great input into the band. We sure
hope to have you here again!
Whigham: I'm sure I'll be back, Carl. I think it's just
fantastic not only that you guys are doing this, but also how you're doing it. Till has
done a great job, and the support you are getting is unique. You have a real following in
Bamberg, and the band's reputation is already growing.
Lenthe: Yes, that is quite gratifying. We started the band in
the midst of the many activities surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Bamberg Symphony
in 1996. Till Weser, one of our trumpeters, was the initiator. We have to import the
saxophone section, obviously, but otherwise every position is filled by members of the
orchestra, even lead trumpet. We are fortunate to have a great group of young musicians
within the orchestra who are able to play in this genre. Our timpanist plays drums, a
hornist plays the electric guitar and the bass player just leaves his bow at home and lets
his fingers do the walking. This time we were glad to have Volker Braun, solo oboist from
Jena, play the piano for us.
Whigham: I think it's great that you have established this and
already have some regularity going.
Lenthe: Well, this is our third project already. After the first
concert, we had a program with Ack van Rooyen, and coming up in December is a neat project
where we split a program with the orchestra, playing an homage to Benny Goodman, with
Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto, Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, and some
of Goodman's classic tunes such as the the Paganini Caprice 24, Sing, Sing, Sing and
others. It will all be recorded for CD by EMI with Ingo Metzmacher conducting, and
featuring Sabine and Wolfgang Meyer as soloists.
It has been a good bit of work, but we have all been enjoying it a lot.
I view it as a welcome change of pace to the orchestra work, and feel that it's good for
all of us to pursue something together outside of the orchestra schedule.
Whigham: The day before this started you all just came back from
somewhere...
Lenthe: Yeah, our yearly Austrian tour, which this year went to
Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well, with Bruckner, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Beethoven
and all those cats. That is our bread and butter, of course, but we're all glad for the
change of pace. How do you view this whole crossover phenomenon?
I'm sure that with your experience, you see players from the jazz end of
things pushing toward the classical sector.
Whigham: Well, first of all - years ago, particularly in Germany,
if you played jazz even just in the practice rooms, you'd get thrown out of school. This
has changed radically in the last years. The feeling at the Hochschule fur Musik in
Cologne, as well as at the Hochschule for r Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin is
one of full support, from the administration, the staff and even the faculty of violin,
composition and so forth.
I've started a course in Berlin called "Jazz for Everyone,"
where once a semester I invite violinists, oboists and other instrumentalists who normally
don't have contact with jazz and popular music. They come and learn how to improvise,
learn the different styles, for example, learning to play with a triplet feel instead of
straight up and down eighths, and things of that nature. It's a lot of ear work and
listening to each other, which is ultimately what we all have to do.
We're also going to start a series of orchestra concerts using the
symphony at "Hanns Eisler" as a studio orchestra. We'll start with some Gershwin
and later cross over to more jazz things. The idea is not necessarily to promote jazz
music, but rather to educate non-jazz and non-popular players into this idiom. It's a
different language, even though it's all music.
Lenthe: Is it a different language or more of a dialect?
Whigham: Well, maybe a strong dialect, but a lot of it is a
different language. In classical music, if it says f#, then it's f#. And if it's on
one-and, then it's on one-and. But in jazz music it can be awfully different, and changed
and stretched a lot. It's left a lot more to the ear.
Lenthe: You know, there are a lot of interesting ideas here. In my
teaching, I really try to encourage my students to improvise, if only for the flexibility
and training of the reflexes and hearing. Also, the ability to imagine something and then
create it is invaluable, and constitutes the essence of being a musician for me.
Classically trained players can be very tied to the written note,
as you were saying, and sometimes be stiff as cardboard. That's also a reason for
introducing some jazz techniques and approaches into your playing program.
If you study the methods and habits of practicing over the centuries,
you'll make an interesting discovery. In baroque times, through the early classic and
classical periods, instrumentalists practiced in a way that resembles a lot of the jazz
and improvisation methods today. They would take phrases, figures or themes from their
concertos or sonatas and learn them in all keys or on all steps of the scale. This also
explains how they were able to improvise cadenzas: they had a great repertoire of
programmed figures and phrases literally at their fingertips.
This was standard practice until the romantic period, when composers such
as Liszt, Chopin, Paganini and others were composing pieces with such super virtuosic
technical demands, that the instrumentalists spent most of their time just learning the
notes that the composers dictated.
Whigham: There are also parallels in styles to be mentioned here.
In baroque and pre-baroque, the violinists would first play the note and then start the
vibrato, like a jazz singer today does. Also the eighth notes were not played straight,
but more like (singing): doo-ba-doo-ba-doo-ba. There are a lot of parallels, and this
stuff is 300 years old! It's interesting how these concepts have been lost due to the
importance of the printed note. But you know, that's changing. The pendulum is swinging
back to an openness for all kinds of music. Not only jazz music, but world music:
Japanese, Indonesian, Indian music are all open to influence from classical composers and
jazz composers, and this openness is enhanced through the great progress in the
communications sector, with the myriad of possibilities not even dreamed of even 20 years
ago.
Lenthe: Another result of the extreme instrumental demands in the
romantic period was the specialization. We're glad in the band to have a little go at what
for us is an entirely different style and manner of playing. Maybe the pendulum is
swinging away from specialization. Are future musicians going to have to command all of
these areas of playing from jazz to authentic baroque?
Whigham: There has already been a great change in the concept of
playing, and it is important to be able to cover as many bases as possible. In my
teaching, even though I teach "jazz" trombone, I work on a lot of Rochut with
the students and make sure that they develop a good sound and reliable
technique. You can
be very creative, but if you can't make the instrument work for you, it's going to be a
limitation. After you can play high and low; loud and soft, fast and slow and in tune,
then it is less limiting, and you are able to make a clearer statement as a creative
artist. That is what were are after.
Lenthe: So we agree that the approaches are becoming more and more
similar, the borders becoming more wishy-washy.
Whigham: Yes, of course. Did you know for example, that one of Emory
Remington's favorite trombonists was Urbie Green? Now, I unfortunately don't know this
firsthand, but the word goes out that he really revered Urbie, as of course do all of us
who know how he plays. But this was at the time before the walls had broken so far down,
before the borders were so wishy-washy as you said.
Lenthe: Obviously we're going to need a firm stylistic grasp on
many different kinds of music.
Whigham: Yes. But at the same time the lack of style is a very
severe danger. If we are going to play Beethoven, let's make sure it sounds like
Beethoven; If we're playing Debussy, it should sound like Debussy; Count Basie like Count
Basie. Those styles should be clearly defined, because the Zeitgeist of that music is
clearly defined.
Lenthe: Right, and yet I'm sure we both know examples of thoroughly
trained, proficient musicians who command their instruments, have diligently studied the
different styles but fail to communicate a message. I encourage my students to search out
the message in the music, believe in it and then portray it.
Whigham: I think it has to do with internalization. A lot of times
there seems to be a short circuit from the eye to the brain to the lung. It doesn't go
down into the heart. I like to tell my students about the holy trinity of music. The
Holy Trinity in the church is of course the Father the Son and the Spirit, but in music it is
the ear, the brain and the heart. Those three things have got to be in balance. The brain
is obviously technique, the heart is the feeling and soul, and the ear is the overseer of
all of this. It all has to be in sync, for all kinds of music.
Lenthe: So you spent the last few days with a bunch of classical
players playing big band. How do you see jazz' players approaching the classics?
Whigham: Well, if I start with myself, I'd have to say that most of
the music that I listen to is classical, a lot of orchestral music and string quartets. I
love to compare, and a little while back I did a comparative listening test of Beethoven's
string quartets, opus 18. I listened to the Juilliard Quartet, the Amadeus Quartet, the
Alban Berg Quartet and how they interpreted that opus. I learned a lot about
interpretation and formulated my own opinions, all of which gave me a different take on
how to play jazz music and how to improvise, and also gave me an insight into the basis of
what Beethoven was trying to do, as the progressive composer that he went on to become.
This kind of thing broadens our scope. Most importantly, and this has to
very clearly stated, is that we keep the stylistic integrity of the music. Back in the
40s, 50s and 60s, when music directors spent more time with their orchestra than the
eight-week average which seems to be the norm today, the traditions of orchestral playing
were more clearly defined. There was the Cleveland-Szell sound, the
Philadelphia-Ormandy
sound, the Chicago-Reiner sound, the sinewy sound of the woodwinds in the Opera d' Paris,
the dark rich sound of the Berlin Philharmonic, and so on. The styles have to be
recognized, and be an integral part of the interpretation.
Lenthe: Interesting here, is the difference between period
styles and orchestral styles, which most would agree have become more uniform. With
recordings being internationally available, and the general technical niveau rising, we
have a sort of globalization of style here.
The authenticity movement has brought some great things back into music,
and heightened peoples' awareness for matters of style, articulation, sound and even
instruments. Once in a while, with Mozart for example, a conductor will request that we
play sackbuts. Sometimes we are able to fulfill the request, but the questions remain if
we are sacrificing a piece of our specific orchestral identity in the process, or it if
makes sense for only one section of the orchestra to suit up in period dress, as it were.
More important than the equipment factor is the style and articulation,
although the instrument is also important. Of course the authenticity wave is well out of
the baroque, through the classical period and scratching at the romantic already. What it
basically amounts to is a conscientious cultivation of our musical heritage, all the while
broadening our scope, as you put it.
Whigham: It can be difficult, and is a question of proficiency;
also one of orchestral balance. I remember when CDs first came out about 15 years ago, a
friend of mine went out and bought one of the first ones, recorded by Karajan. I think it
was the Overture to Don Giovanni. On the disc was also a re-mastered recording of
Furtwangler doing the same piece 30 years earlier.
Although the playing in the l982 version was more accurate and more on the
money; and had a complete pristine cleanliness about it, there was something about the
earlier recording that grabbed me a lot more. I'd like to hear your take on that, because
we obviously have students coming out of the schools left and right who are wonderful
technicians, wonderful players but whose focus is often on technique
Lenthe: Well now, this is a classic subject that comes up
repeatedly. We'll leave the Karajan-Furtwangler discussion for the experts, although I can
heartily recommend Werner Tharichens book, Paukenschlage in this context.
I have had the fortune of playing along with two older generations
of musicians already, and the question is often stated as simply as, "Do musicians
play more accurately, but with less feeling now than they used to?" I have received
different answers on that, and one can't forget the subjective facts either, which might
say, "Well may be these young whippersnappers can play faster and trickier than I can,
but I can play with more feeling!" I think it is a fact that our insights and
emotions, feelings and thoughts continue to grow far beyond the scope of our technical
proficiency, and that these are the areas that lead us further in the art.
The recording industry and our general technical ambitions certainly play
a role here also. Whatever the actual analysis may be, the bottom line for me in my
teaching and playing is that the technique serves to get the message and the feeling
across.
Is this question bandied about among jazz musicians as well?
Whigham: Yeah, sure. Just to stick with the big bands, let's take
the classic recording of Count Basie's band playing Little Darlin' recorded in the
'50s. If you really study this recording under the microscope, you'll hear that the band
is really not in tune, and that there are other irregularities that are kind of off the
wall. But there is a sound of "non-well-temperedness" about the performance that
is basically personality. Now a musicologist might say that the band is out of tune, but
I'm suggesting that maybe the band is really in tune with itself. These guys lived and
played with each other, day in and day out, on the road and everything.
This is a luxury which you guys in the symphony orchestra have. You can
develop a style with each other.
Lenthe: Your RIAS Big Band in Berlin also has the luxury of
consistently playing together...
Whigham: Yes, and the band has a distinctive
"personality" which is constantly developing, and which is shaped to serve the
music which is being played. Many big bands today, on the other hand, are basically
dinosaurs, a traditional kind of thing. It's wonderful that this music is being played.
But the bands of the big band era, Benny Goodman's, Count Basie's, Duke Ellington's and so
forth, developed a style through the energy of each individual player. A lot of the newer
bands are "telephone" bands. These people come together and rehearse for a
couple of days and make their recording. It's very often good music, of course, with
brilliant soloists and all, but is lacking something…
Now, I don't want to sound like an old man here, but I've had the
opportunity to hear Duke Ellingtons's band live, to play with Count Basie and with Stan
Kenton. The sound the bands put out, working together night after night, was really
amazing. They developed a style, and some unspeakable things were just done. There were
things we just didn't talk about. You just sensed the length or taper of a note, or the
dynamic level in a phrase.
It's pretty unique, and what we have to be aware of is that music is a
strange and elusive thing. It was never meant to be captured. For all of his strengths and
weaknesses, Mr. Celibidache had a very clear take on this, about not recording. Music is
to be performed now. It is for now, and just because Thomas Edison's genius allowed it to
be captured doesn't mean that it was meant to be captured.
Lenthe: And yet recording is an absolutely indispensable part of
the profession.
Whigham: Well, we're lucky to have the media, and the
opportunity to hear great offerings of music, but yet it is kind of a contradiction. Very
often the priority of younger players is on producing a CD. The business is like that, of
course, and the CD serves as a calling card. Because of this, the recording becomes the
priority, whereas in reality, playing should be the priority, making music in the here and
now, having the total freedom to go for it, with-out worrying about leaving a little
mistake on the CD forever. It gives a whole extra energy to playing.
Think about the intensity of playing before it was possible to make
cuts and splices, to fix this and that up, and get rid of that funny note. Take the old
Toscanini recordings. They are phenomenal, even if there is an occasional ragged edge
somewhere. The intensity is incredible. In the big band recordings, with Benny Goodman,
Tommy Dorsey and all the other great bands, the musicians knew that they had to play the
piece from the upper left corner to the bottom right corner, and with intensity. There was
no slacking off, thinking that they can cut in on any part. There is an energy there that
is incalculable, but it is in the music.
Lenthe: I've heard that very argument used to argue that
musicians used to have to play more accurately, and as you say, with intensity too. If
they messed up, they had to record the whole piece again.
Whigham: And these band leaders were rough! With Tommy Dorsey or
Benny Goodman, if you made a couple of mistakes, you were out of there. Tommy basically
didn't make mistakes, and Benny didn't either, so they didn't understand people who did
make mistakes.
Lenthe: Now, what was your training? I hear lots of classical
background bubbling out of your comments, not to mention out of your improvisations!
Whigham: I started as a pianist at age seven in Cleveland. I
went to the Cleveland Institute of Music and started with piano training, with Mozart,
Beethoven and Bach. But piano was never my instrument. My dad was an amateur trombonist
and I had that sound in my head. I used to fool around with his horn as a kid. One summer
I raised tomato plants on a farm, and bought a trombone at the King factory for $110. I
never had lessons on it, and just learned by watching and listening to the other people.
Lenthe: Isn't that funny! My father played the trombone too, on
the occasional Sunday. It just goes to show the danger of leaving a trombone around the
house where it could change a kid's life. My first trombone also cost $110, and I earned the
money with azaleas. The second try, for $344, landed me the Conn that I still play.
Whigham: I just loved the sound of the trombone. The trombone is
a beautiful beast, and to make it sound rich and beautiful and warm is awfully nice, even
if it is only one note. You don't have to necessarily play 25 notes when one will do...
