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FYC: Rick Bogart Concerto For Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra






FYC: Rick Bogart Concerto For Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra



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October 23, 2018

To: Listings/Critics/Features
From: Jazz Promo Services
www.jazzpromoservices.com

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Rick Bogart
Concerto For Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra
 GRAMMYS 2019

Jazz Composer
jazz Performer
Jazz Vocalist

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Rick Bogart Concerto II & III
Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra

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Rick Bogart
“Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra” REVIEW
By Mick Carlon
 

 
     Rick Bogart’s “Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra” is a deeply moving, beautiful musical experience.  With lush strings and varied jazz rhythms, the piece is as fascinating as it is lovely.
    What does the composer and clarinetist have to say about this exceptional composition?  “Why are jazz musicians so relegated to playing with small groups in jazz clubs?  Why can’t a jazz musician stand in front of a symphony orchestra and play music that has an improvised aspect?  Mozart, Beethoven, Bach—they were all gifted improvisers.  I really wanted to create something different—something that I could play every night if needed.”
     After an opening movement that immediately captures the ear with its depth and beauty, the concerto then switches into a sultry rhythm redolent of rainy New Orleans nights.  “I was trying to make a lush Debussy background with the strings,” says Bogart, “with voicings you can only achieve with a string section—from the bass fiddle to the cello to the viola and to the violins.  You can really voice a chord nicely that way, spread over three octaves. I painstakingly tried to give the strings a full voicing and not be background as in pop music. (I tried) to form different backgrounds and different feelings in each movement connected with cadenzas.”
     To this listener, Bogart’s concerto is a deeply involving experience, grabbing both the ear and the intellect, and it is all led by the composer’s liquid, gorgeous clarinet.  “The cheeky part of it all is that I really wanted to make ‘music history’ by writing a concerto for clarinet and orchestra in which the clarinet part is 95 percent improvised.”
     For all of its beauty, this is one concerto that does not forget to swing.  “The opening minor theme is completely written out for the clarinet part.  From then on it is an extended set of chord changes against different string backgrounds. There’s a section of twelve bar blues that is not recognizable unless you count it because of the altered chords and dissonances—yet it still has a bluesy feeling.  There are two uptempo sections—one is in major and one is in minor—then for the last movement the concerto moves into the old New Orleans stop time choruses. The strings are playing the stop time along with the rhythm section—then into full rhythm with a perfectly placed flatted fifth in unison with the violins, and then it goes out from there with the strings playing with the piano, bass and drums.  I wasn’t sure if I could do it but…here it is.”
     Here it is indeed.  This jazz concerto is a masterpiece of American music, an innovative creation that should be played around the globe.  If there is any justice left—and I believe there is—Rick Bogart’s “Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra” will be collecting Grammy Awards next March.
 
 
Mick Carlon
Acclaimed author for major publications on the subject of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and a fictional book entitled Girl Singer-which in development for Broadway as a musical. Mick is a jazz promoter, and speaker. Specializing in Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. He is a patron of the Arts. His feature article on Rick Bogart in Jazz Times is a favorite all over the world.

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