Fluid mechanics teaches us that several containers connected at their base will share the same height of a liquid poured into one of them, whatever their shape and volume. Applied to the musical genres and styles that we mistakenly use as labels stuck on hermetically sealed bottles, the principle of communicating vessels is probably a more adequate representation of the interplay and interdependence in the highly fluctuating material of music. It is conspicuous when we look at the links between classical music and jazz, two worlds that have constantly enriched each other over the years. This is what pianist and composer Hervé Sellin demonstrates here in a programme based on two major catalysts of this phenomenon, first Claude Debussy, then Maurice Ravel, in a series of improvised recreations.
The companionship of the two genres can be traced back to the very origins of ragtime, one of whose precursors, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), drew his inspiration from the piano pieces of Romantic composers such as Frédéric Chopin, whom he met in Paris, as well as from traditional Creole dances. A few decades later, the same syncopated rhythms fascinated Claude Debussy, who gave his own interpretation of them in pastiche-like pieces such as “The Little Nigar”, or “cake-walk”, as the score reads, and the piece that closes the Children’s Corner collection. These light, playful pieces, with their rhythmic vivacity and quirky humour, reveal Debussy’s openness to Afro-American influences. And conversely, in Debussy’s more introspective works, we can perceive the lasting influence he exerted on jazz. “La fille aux cheveux de lin”, from his Préludes, and “Reflets dans l’eau”, from Images, show his innovative work on sound textures and harmony which jazzmen have continued to explore, taking up and reinterpreting his works over the decades. One of his most emblematic works, the famous “Clair de lune” melody from Suite bergamasque, has inspired many, turning this “Promenade sentimentale” (its original title) into a timeless ballad. As for Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Debussy’s orchestral masterpiece that marked a real break with the classical tradition, its continuous flow already sounds almost like a long improvisation.
Maurice Ravel, for his part, was also a pioneer in the integration of jazz into classical music. Pavane pour une infante défunte gave rise to the jazz standard “The Lamp Is Low”, composed by Peter DeRose and Bert Shefter and performed by Mildred Bailey, Erroll Garner and Sarah Vaughan. In an interview of July 1931, Ravel himself acknowledged that “no-one can reject rhythms today”, that “recent music is full of jazz influences” and that syncopation can even be recognised in his new Piano Concerto, “although they are refined”. Fascinated by sounds and rhythms from America, Ravel stylised and integrated them into his personal language alongside other foreign elements such as Hispanic folklore (as seen in Rapsodie espagnole), ancient Greek dances (traces of which can be heard in Daphnis et Chloé) and the world of fairy tales (found in Ma mère l’Oye). In the manner of a seasoned improviser, Ravel freely draws on these diverse sources, using them, in his own words, as “basic creative material”.
Did he know that his compositions would suffer the same fate, transformed into a new musical object of meaning for future generations of artists? Such is the case with the ostinato of “Prélude à la nuit”, which opens Rapsodie espagnole and can be converted into a rhythmic basis for improvisation, or the dreamlike themes of Daphnis et Chloé, which lend themselves to reharmonisation and the most creative arrangements. Because, contrary to popular belief, improvisation doesn’t preclude compositional sophistication and writing: it’s rather about tapping a reservoir of inspiration in order to de- and re-construct an ever-renewed musical discourse. Indeed, Django Reinhardt claimed to find in jazz the formal perfection and instrumental precision he admired in classical music. From “Nuages” to “Bolero”, he too was inspired by impressionist composers.
From the 1960s onward, the blending of jazz and classical music was even theorised as the concept of “Third Stream”. The communicating vessels overflow along this long river where composers and performers who don’t intend to be tied down to one style rub shoulders with curious listeners who will detect the fleeting traces of two intertwined worlds, offering a musical dialogue of inexhaustible richness.
Manon Fabre
