JAZZ REVIEW : Brubeck Choral Work Blurs Jazz, Classical Boundaries

Marriages between jazz and classical music are often forced, uneasy affairs. One or the other partner tends to dominate, and there are uncomfortable moments when classical musicians are asked to swing or improvise, or when jazz musicians are made to tow the formal, composed line.

Pianist Dave Brubeck, however, mostly avoided these marital clashes when he wrote his six-part “Pange Lingua Variations.” Performed by Brubeck’s trio, the 50-voice Cantori Domino choir and orchestra (conducted by Brubeck’s producer, Russell Gloyd) Wednesday at St. Augustine by-the-Sea Parish in Santa Monica, the piece came down firmly inside the choral music tradition while blurring the boundaries between jazz and classical music.

Based on a melody thought to date back to the 6th century and inspired by verses St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the 13th century, Brubeck’s variations are more a time-machine of musical tradition rather than a blend of two forms. All but one of the six sections opened with male voices intoning Aquinas’ Latin stanzas in Gregorian form before the orchestra; Brubeck’s trio and the remaining voices joined in during presentation of the English translations (written by Brubeck’s wife, Iola).

These warm, sometimes melancholy amalgams of voice and instruments moved ahead through the centuries in form and style, looking to the cantata form and further to the birth of Impressionism and the rhythms of jazz. The ambitious fifth section opened with the Latin chant, moved through a passage of affirmation from the brass and a call-and-response section between choir and horns before Brubeck’s piano improvisation floated over a descending pattern of homages from the voices.

The flu-ridden Brubeck, performing despite doctor’s orders to cancel, made the most of his short, infrequent improvisational sections with harmonically ambitious chordal clusters and tinges of unsettling dissonance. In places, the choir provided swirling background to his offbeat, dance-like figures while son Chris Brubeck added droning electric bass. But for the most part, the pianist was limited to brief embellishment or sitting out altogether.

Only once, when son and drummer Dan Brubeck established a sort of shuffling backbeat that preceded a predictably rhythmic percussion solo, did the jazz instruments intrude on the otherwise devotional mood. But this small exception didn’t detract from Brubeck’s smart, sensitive venture into the world of sacred choral music.

* The Dave Brubeck Trio and Cantori Domino perform Brubeck’s “La Fiesta de Posada” tonight at the Bel-Air Presbyterian Church, 16221 Mulholland Drive, 7 p.m., $30, and Brubeck’s “The Gates of Justice” Sunday at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Blvd., 5:30 p.m. $30. Information for both: (818) 226-9269.