Musicians can’t live on classical alone. Sometimes they need to dig into other genres, or at least one that is “close” to classical. Like jazz. Two different styles of music, but also two that are not in totally different realms of the musical canon. Aggressive, complicated, beautiful, moving, swinging and powerful, it’s cool when you’ve got high-level musicians into playing a bit of both styles.
Which will be the case on Saturday for one of the final performances for this year’s Music in the Mountains Festival, when guest pianist and composer Mariano Morales performs with the Festival Orchestra for “Cha Cha Cha! Latin Jazz Night” at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
The players at the festival, along with Morales and Conductor/Festival Director Guillermo Figueroa, are people at the top of their game when it comes to performing music. These are the best of the best in the musical realm of any genre: When they perform a show with a theme like Saturday’s, which will feature pieces by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and Mariano and Noro Morales, it’s a prime showcase of their musical prowess.
WHAT: Music in the Mountains presents Cha Cha Cha! Latin Jazz Night with Mariano Morales and the Festival Orchestra.
WHEN: Saturday.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: $50-$70.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.musicinthemountains.com.
“I think this is a wonderful opportunity for the orchestra to show their versatility, because most orchestras are focused on the classical music, and people tend to think that they cannot do anything else. And that’s not true at all, but due to the organization and the way they work, most of the repertoire is geared toward classical music. So, in this case its going to be a wonderful experience for the audience to see the orchestra perform something very different from what they are used to hearing,” Morales said. “I think that’s a wonderful experience because they are going to see how versatile their musicians are. I think that’s a great experience.”
These musicians aren’t one-trick ponies. These are musicians with a wealth of styles in their back pockets, and Music in the Mountains is a festival unafraid to throw a curve ball or two. It’s a way to keep the festival spicey, which is something it’s always excelled at through offerings outside of classical music.
“I think that a lot of people have made a line, like saying, ‘OK, you listen to Beethoven, you cannot listen to anything else,’ and those lines have been blurred. You see a lot of jazz musicians, like Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, they have recorded Mozart concertos,” Morales said. “People will ask, ‘aren’t you a jazz musician?’ No, I’m a musician which happens to play mainly jazz. So, the same thing will happen to the orchestra. We are musicians, and it just happens yesterday I was playing Beethoven, but today, I’m playing something else.”
Look for the evening to be a classical orchestra joined by an upbeat, smoker of a Latin jazz pianist in Morales, feverously connecting the dots between classical music and jazz, while proudly boasting the abilities of all of the musicians around him. It also may call for the classical music festival to open up a dance floor.
“We have a full program for the audience to have pure jazz, then the second part you are going to have Latin jazz in different styles,” said Morales, who was given free rein by Figueroa on the selection of the Latin jazz pieces. “And that’s why they call it ‘Cha Cha Cha!’ You are going to go from cha cha cha to Afro style to different things. So yes, hopefully they are going to leave tapping their fingers and moving their feet.”
The final performance for Music in the Mountains on Sunday will feature more Morales when the Festival Orchestra performs his “Concerto for Flute and Orchestra” among others.
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
