Sunday Songs - Richie Beirach

Mar

18

Sunday Songs - Richie Beirach

≡ Category: 1990s, Avant-Guarde, Highly Recommended, Non-Jazz, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

I suppose it was inevitable. Richie Beirach has been utilizing ideas from classical music in jazz his whole career. It was only a matter of time until he got around to improvising on classical music compositions.

As Beirach points out in the liner notes, that isn’t as big a departure as it sounds like:

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin were renowned as much for their skill in extemporization as for the quality of their written scores.

But how does this work out in practice? Well, Beirach is a wonderful technician and to my ears, his improvisations on the classical themes contained in Sunday Song are tasteful.

Take, for example, Debussy’s …Des Pas Sur La Neige (Prelude Book 1, No. 6). You can barely tell where Debussy’s compositions ends and Beirach’s inventions begin.

More problematic for some will be Beirach’s take on Chopin’s Prelude (Opus 28, No. 20 in C Minor), which most of us philistines know from Barry Manilow’s hit Mandy. (Now you know where Manilow stole it from.) Anyway, Beirach indulges in a blistering run or two. I think of this as an outgrowth of the passion inherent in the piece. Others might disagree.

Aside from the selections from the classical repetoire, Beirach includes four of his originals, as well as one composition apiece by George Mraz and Bill Evans. The non-classical pieces blend into the concept of Sunday Song seamlessly.

The question might come up, in Sunday Song, are we getting the clinical, cold Beirach of Breathing Statues and Antarctica or the passionate lyricist of Forgotten Fantasies and Omerta? Somehow, interpreting the music of Debussy, and especially Chopin and Schumann has brought out the warmth and lyrical side of Beirach’s personality.

Beirach goes easy on the dissonance and pointillism on Sunday Song, and while that may result in a recording that’s less brilliant than his masterpiece Self Portraits, it does make for some very pleasant listening. This is a recording that you could play for your girlfriend, and even for your mother, which is not to denigrate Beirach’s accomplishment. His playing and musical thinking is as intellectually rigorous as ever, it just happens to be remarkably accessible this time out.