Program Notes

To fill out the original 1956 Crime in the Streets recording Franz Waxman composed two additional concert pieces: Theme Variation and Fugato and Three Sketches for Jazz Orchestra and. Waxman compared writing jazz to composing chamber music.

Here are Waxman’s original liner notes for Theme, Variation and Fugato for Jazz Orchestra from the original 1956 Decca Lp release:

1. The Theme is first stated in its original form by the alto saxophone, accompanied by harp solo.

2. The first variation features the pizzicato bass, reiterating the first nine notes of the theme, over which the saxophones and brass instruments play fleeting bits of musical passages. A sudden fortissimo in the brass section is counterpointed by all the saxophones playing the first seven notes of the theme in a newly syncopated manner. The bass solo concludes this variation.

3. In this variation the tenor and baritone saxophones take the lead, changing the theme into a blues-like variation, interrupted by short phrases of trumpets and trombones. The middle section consists of the tenor and baritone saxophone alternating and forming a pattern made up of the same thematic material over which the piano develops a counterpoint made up of the same “tone-row” of the original theme. A short piano cadenza leads to the coda.

4. The third variation is essentially a piano solo accompanied by percussion and vibraphone. It again shows rhythmical variations with a slightly lyrical middle part.

5. This variation has the trumpet playing the theme in a much slower and slightly extended version, to a constant and rhythmic background of trombones and bass clarinets.

6. The final fugato variation starts off with the cymbal indicating the theme as stated in the beginning as a purely rhythmical expression. The next instrument to enter is the vibraphone playing the entire theme in the key of B-flat, after which the alto saxophone enters; the vibraphone takes up the first counterpoint for the entire length. Next to enter is the tenor saxophone. The first counterpoint moves over to the alto saxophone, and the vibraphone introduces the second counterpoint. Next the trombone enters, and all counterpoint themes are continued throughout. Finally the trumpets enter with the original theme in fortissimo. At the same time the baritone saxophone and trombone play the augmentation of the same theme as counterpoint, developing into a short section for full brass based on the first two notes of the theme, to which the saxophones answer individually in a canon like form of the middle section. The cadenza for piano solo brings the fugato to its completion.

Waxman took great care in selecting the featured soloists from his Los Angeles Music Festival Orchestra on this recording: all great artists at the top of their form:

Jack Dumont, alto
Joe Mondragon, bass
Charles Gentry, tenor baritone
Ray Turner, piano
Pete Candoli, trumpet

My father left notes regarding Three Sketches and Theme Variations and Fugato as a ballet, which we often discussed. Now that this recording is available once again I hope this music will inspire new audiences.

As a conductor Waxman continued to have an interest in concert works composed in the jazz idiom. He conducted the West Coast premieres of Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra by Rolf Lieberman, with the Les Brown Band, Andre Previn, piano soloist (1955) and Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Symphony Orchestra by Howard Brubeck, with the Dave Brubeck quartet (1960) at the Los Angeles Music Festival in Royce Hall at UCLA.

– © John W. Waxman, July 2009