A talented jazz pianist I know, Peter, recently asked this question: Does Beethoven lend itself to being jazzed up? Peter, a lifelong lover of Bach, readily offered up a number of examples of Bach jazzed up, but as for Beethoven, we agreed to do our separate research and get back to each other. We discovered a tremendous display of talent! Our journey of discovery went something like this:
Peter: To get started, it is interesting to hear what Chris Hinze has to say on the subject of jazzing up. To my mind he is one of the very best practitioners of the art. What he did back in the ’70s on his flute was quite exceptional. He said: “I wanted to play baroque music without syncopating or mindlessly ‘jazzifying’, but purely by improvising on the thematic and harmonic material with the possibilities that jazz offered to me”.
Anna: Which Chris Hinze piece would you recommend I start with?
Peter: Listen to the faithful adherence to the score, but with original instrumentation and overdubbed flutes in the allegro from the 3rd Brandenburg concerto, with an inspired piano solo from Louis Van Dijk (3:10), and then some flights of fancy (3:50) by several interweaving flutes briefly in unison with the piano. Genius.
Anna: As a child, I remember my parents had a Play Bach record from the 60s. Can you tell me about this contribution to the genre?
Peter: Indeed! It’s impossible to talk about jazzing up without mentioning Jacques Loussier, the French pioneer, who started it all. His five Play Bach records have stood the test of time. I grew up on them, as my father bought them one by one in the ’60s. Let me show you the first piece from the first record, the Prelude No.1. The famous improvisation starts at 2:08. I can sing along right through. Recorded in 1959. As old as me!
Anna: Fantastic! Let us turn our attention to Beethoven. What did you find out?
Peter: Jazzing up the classics is a bit of a niche interest. Some jazz fans, purists usually, have no time for it. Some classical music lovers say it is sacrilegious to do this to the great composers. Some people say it’s gimmicky. As a jazz and classical lover, I love it when it’s well done, find it exciting, and I consider it an absolutely legitimate, inspiring and worthwhile thing to do.
On to Beethoven. I was very interested to discover Fazil Say, playing the arietta from sonata 32. I at first thought he was seriously jazzing it up, and I went to look at other versions for comparison, and was fascinated to hear just how bouncy and inherently syncopating the piece is. Whether one can say that Beethoven was ahead of his time, two centuries before boogie woogie, is debatable, but there is an uncanny similarity.
Anna: Yes, the classical pianist Andras Schiff is not impressed by this comparison to the boogie woogie. I can see how subtle Fazil Say’s jazzification actually is. Without much alteration he does give the piece a modern, jazzy feel.
Allow me to introduce my first discovery: Derek Paravicini. He’s a musical savant, it’s amazing what he can do.
Peter: Amazing indeed! I looked him up, he has severe autism and learning difficulties. He is also blind from birth. His musical talents are quite incredible: he has perfect pitch, a photographic musical memory, and the ability to transpose anything instantly to any key.
Anna: It would be interesting to interview Derek Paravicini for our substack subcribers.
Peter, you’re up next!
Peter: Let me show you an example by John Kirby (1908 – 1952). He was a bass player and band leader. What he has done with the 2nd movement of the 7th symphony is clever, it swings and even has some deft improvising by the sax and trumpet players.
Anna: Very nice. Whilst on the subject of the Seventh Symphony, I found a fantastic Cuban style jazzed up version of the second movement by Joachim Horsley.
Peter: An inspired piece!
Anna: In the documentary A World Without Beethoven?, the great jazz trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis compares Beethoven’s modernity to Louis Armstrong in the 20th century. He goes on to talk about Beethoven’s rhythms: the unique syncopation in the Third Symphony, and the unusual rhythms in two of the String Quartets. Here is the clip:
Peter: I found myself watching the whole documentary, and discovered the pianist Katie Mahan talking about Piano Sonata No. 32, played above by Fazil Say. She points out the natural swing in the music and the blues notes.
Anna: This has been a very interesting exchange, Peter! My final contribution to this topic today is this clever samba style version of the wonderful Tempest sonata.
Jean Kleeb wrote two sets of scores, published by Barenreiter. One is Beethoven goes jazz, the other Beethoven Around the World.
Peter: Brilliant! I believe we can conclude that some of Beethoven’s music does indeed lend itself to jazzification, as these clever examples demonstrate. I do, however, believe that other composers such as Bach are more conducive to being jazzed up than Beethoven is. I cannot quite figure out why that is, I would be intrigued to hear what other people have to say about that.