Peter Beets

[Durium]

The idea is not new ! - a lot of jazz and pop musicians made eyes at the classical music composers to get increase in sales, but Peter Beets made an album only he can do - His album Chopin Meets The Blues offers you an hour of swinging jazz in a way Chopin would have liked ..... I'm sure you never heard the Nocturnes, Preludes and Mazurka's of Chopin played the way Peter did with his quartet. Keep Swinging was surprised, because it isn't classical music in a swinging way, but hard bop inspired jazz music at a very high level ....., although Peter refuses to label it as Jazz .... That's why it is called: Chopin Meets The Blues instead of ....Chopin Meets The Jazz!

Peter Beets - Chopin Meets The Blues

Durium

[Peter Friedman]

The idea is not new ! - a lot of jazz and pop musicians made eyes at the classical music composers to get increase in sales, but Peter Beets made an album only he can do - His album Chopin Meets The Blues offers you an hour of swinging jazz in a way Chopin would have liked ..... I'm sure you never heard the Nocturnes, Preludes and Mazurka's of Chopin played the way Peter did with his quartet. Keep Swinging was surprised, because it isn't classical music in a swinging way, but hard bop inspired jazz music at a very high level ....., although Peter refuses to label it as Jazz .... That's why it is called: Chopin Meets The Blues instead of ....Chopin Meets The Jazz!

Peter Beets - Chopin Meets The Blues

Durium

Durium,

You are absolutely right. I have this one and it is, IMHO, a definite winner. One of the most enjoyable CDs I have bought in the past 12 months.

[fasstrack]

The idea is not new ! - a lot of jazz and pop musicians made eyes at the classical music composers to get increase in sales, but Peter Beets made an album only he can do - His album Chopin Meets The Blues offers you an hour of swinging jazz in a way Chopin would have liked ..... I'm sure you never heard the Nocturnes, Preludes and Mazurka's of Chopin played the way Peter did with his quartet. Keep Swinging was surprised, because it isn't classical music in a swinging way, but hard bop inspired jazz music at a very high level ....., although Peter refuses to label it as Jazz .... That's why it is called: Chopin Meets The Blues instead of ....Chopin Meets The Jazz!Peter Beets - Chopin Meets The Blues

Durium

I've known Peter since my first trip to the Hague in 2001. Played a few times in grimy joints there and hung in his apartment, watching mad jazz videos. He's the real thing, can stomp! I thought him easily the most swinging Dutch pianist. (Czech-born Juraj Stanik is also good, but more of a Romantic).

I don't know who's behind these...well, gimmicks. Probably the record label. The first time I heard Peter (pronounced Pater Bates) do this it didn't wash. I thought, let Chopin be Chopin, fer Chrissakes. No 'blowing' neccesary----the cadenzas and much of his content were probably improvised to begin with. Well, the changes on Prelude #4 are really pretty, I can see why people would pounce. I myself think the melody and a good presentation at that mournful tempo are enough. (And that's why they pay me the big money.... )

I haven't heard the entire thing, and though Peter can definitely play and has a world of talent these kinds of recordings are as suspect to me as Beatlejazz----they do neither form a favor. I'll listen again though out of respect for Peter.

Other 'fusions' do work and make sense for me---like Stan Getz/Eddie Sauter's Focus, a different animal as the 'classical' component was backgrounds strong enough to stand alone but with a large hole written right in for Getz to fill. Also in the 70s Ben Aronov made a recording---Shadow Box---where the band played on changes of a Debussy theme. Shearing's Bach borrowings and an Impressionistic take on Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle were also very believable---but he was working in reverse from the approach Beets and others are attempting. Any remember Nat Cole's Rachmaminoff C# Minor Prelude? A whole different animal, just a conceit for some great blowing.

So this has always been done. Just make sure each offering passes the smell test. Anyway I'm glad Peter is becoming better known here. He's excellent, a real natural----and way into jazz. Lives and breathes it, and has two brothers as working musicians.

The fact that Joe Cohn is on this is a definite plus. Though his amazing fire, inventiveness, and ears don't quite come through for me on recording as they do live. Don't even get me started, just get that beast a bridle. I missed those two together here in NY and was sorry---not to hear them, I know that would be a bitch---but they're both so wacky the giggles I would've gotten observing those two together would be priceless, like two saxophones cancelling each other out per the overtone series. A lot of intense, insane energy.

Edited April 19, 2011 by fasstrack

[Larry Kart]

Stride and related guys did this a lot (and quite naturally and often effectively IMO):

Tatum:

Waltz In C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2

Bernd Lhotzsky:

Butterfly Etude, Op. 25, No. 9 :

There's also a YouTube video of Lhotzky doing his version of the same waltz Tatum did.

[AllenLowe]

there's a nice '40s Donald Lambert thing like this too - cannot think of the title -

there's also Liberace Plays Charley Patton, but it's out of print, unfortunately.

[Larry Kart]

It's not Chopin, but here's Lambert's fantastic version of Grieg's "Anitra's Dance":

Grieg's Lyric Pieces were big sheet music/parlor piano hits in the late 19th Century U.S. Also, their "folkish" strains naturally linked up to strains in the own musical backgrounds of "ticklers" like Eubie Blake et al., though the term "own" probably obscures the reality of real-life rampant curiosity/cross fertilization.

And Lambert's takeoff on the Pilgrim's Chorus from "Tannhauser":