Classics Meets Jazz for Piano

This volume contains a wide selection of famous musical themes from Bach to Carl Orff. Some of them were originally written for the piano; most have had their scores carefully arranged to make them easy to play on the piano. Each piece is followed with a jazz interpretation, which can either be played alone or alongside the ‘original’ version. Perhaps this will show that the ‘classics’ are not all that far removed from jazz, and that music of earlier periods contains many of the essential characteristics of jazz. Doesn’t Lully’s ‘Gavotte’, for instance, contain one of the most famous jazz themes ever? The ‘Blue Gavotte’ may make this clearer. The theme from Mozart’s Sonata in A major (K 331) doesn’t require many rhythmic changes to give it a blues flavor (‘Mozart Goes Blues’). The driving rhythm of the ostinato bass in Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’ would suit modern jazz-rock performers well, with a few small changes (‘A Fortune for a Tune’). It is difficult to convey a jazz interpretation through musical notation alone, so a CD has been included – not to demonstrate the only possible interpretation, but to offer ideas and suggestions.