For the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble, this weekend's Guest Artist Jazz Concert at the Fox Theater is an even bigger deal than usual. Not only does it mark the event's return after an 18-month pandemic hiatus, it's also a farewell of sorts to Dan Keberle, the ensemble's director, who is retiring after more than 30 years on the Whitworth faculty.
Keberle himself would prefer to downplay that bit. "This is all about the students," he says.
But the concert is also a big deal because of its guest artist, Maria Schneider, a highly respected jazz composer and bandleader. Her 2020 album Data Lords was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and netted Schneider her sixth and seventh Grammy Awards — one for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, the other for Best Instrumental Composition (for the song "Sputnik"). The 96-minute LP was split into two sections, "The Digital World" and "The Natural World," and served as a kind of musical commentary on Big Tech's unsettling role in art and culture.
"People call her the modern-day Duke Ellington," Keberle says. "Her music is not just from the jazz realm. She draws a lot of inspiration from all kinds of music: classical, American folk music, film. Sometimes she adds an accordion, and sometimes she adds an electric guitar that you've only heard in the music of Cream. And there's lots of woodwinds, so sometimes it sounds like a symphony orchestra."
Having a guest artist conduct her own work is a first, but it's not at all unusual for the Guest Artist Jazz Concert to bring in a musician of Schneider's caliber. Over the past three decades, the annual concert has featured the likes of Pat Metheny, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Arturo Sandoval, Jimmy Heath, Joshua Redman and Ryan Keberle, a world-class trombonist who also happens to be Dan Keberle's son, who has played in Schneider's jazz orchestra for 15 years, a personal connection that may have smoothed her path to Spokane.
When she joins the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble April 9, Schneider will be leading the student musicians in a selection of compositions spanning her entire recording career. There will be four pieces from her first album, Evanescence, released in 1994. Those will be augmented with charts from Data Lords as well as her 2015 LP, The Thompson Fields.
"It can be really fun to work with student groups. For me, the best performances are when the musicians are really reaching and really want to make it happen," Schneider says. "Music is, in the end, vulnerable. It's vulnerable to the people who are playing it, and it benefits so much when the attitude behind it is [one of] exceeding expectations."
"It can be really fun to work with student groups. For me, the best performances are when the musicians are really reaching and really want to make it happen."
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When she's working with high schools and universities, Schneider often consults with the band directors to choose the music that will play to their strengths. However, she does tend to reserve some material for her own musicians, in particular the fusion-heavy tracks from the "Digital World" section on Data Lords.
"That music is really, really hard conceptually, and I'd be wary of giving that to student groups. But we are doing a couple pieces from my first album that have that sort of intensity, and they happen to be the two pieces of mine that were David Bowie's favorite pieces and made him come to me to collaborate in 2014," Schneider says.
"And that kind of brought me back to my dark side," she adds with a laugh, "so in a way, the precursor to Data Lords will be represented at the concert."
Keberle is eager to tackle Schneider's music because its challenges will provide an excellent showcase for Whitworth's musicians, many of whom are graduating this year. To accommodate the composer's unique instrumentation, the ensemble musicians will be joined by recent Whitworth grad Jansen Leggett on accordion as well as players from the Whitworth Symphony Orchestra and the Whitworth Wind Symphony.
"Her sax section is more like woodwind parts. Instead of just five saxophones, they can be any combination of saxophones, with a flute here and piccolo there and bass clarinet here. That's how we're adapting. It's kind of a cool idea. It gets some of our classical musicians a chance to work with her, even if it's on one or two tunes," he says.
And while big-band jazz tends to be more "written out" than its small-group (think trio, quartet and quintet) variants, there will be opportunities for them to demonstrate their chops. Schneider's music offers plenty of space for improvisation.
"She has lengthy solos, and I've got these great, talented soloists. I've got students who can really pull it off and play long solos that make sense and fit the song and can develop," Keberle says. "Many of these performers could be at any major music school in the nation." ♦
Whitworth Jazz Ensemble Guest Artist Jazz Concert with Maria Schneider • Sat, April 9 at 8 pm • $15–$25 • Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • whitworth.edu/jazzensemble • 509-624-1200
