KVT – Jazz at L’Opera

As I was en route to Nha Hat Lon on Saturday evening I wondered if the Jazz Concert with a world famous Japanese pianist and the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its Japanese conductor, would be cancelled due to the earthquake that had caused so much damage to Japan…on the same day. But the show went on.

It was an emotive beginning; especially for the Japanese members of the audience. It was announced that all ticket sales from both concerts would be donated to the victims of the quake and it was hard not to stop tears streaming down your face as Ong Honna conducted the strings in a soulful threnody for the living and the dead in that sorrowing land. Then instead of playing a piano solo of a Gene de Paul jazz classic, pianist Yosuke Yamashita said that he’d play a traditional Japanese tune. Was ever such an intense, improvised lamentation urged from a grand piano?

Most of us were in the grand old dame of a theater to hear, and if you got the best seats, to see the 69 year old Yamashita play the Grand in the inimitable style that has made him a household name in Japan and a well known figure in the worldwide world of jazz. Apart from being a great musical innovator, he is renowned for his renditions of classical piano works with symphony orchestras and, apart from the expected Gershwin ‘Rhapsody in Blue”, his repertoire, in that inimitable style, has included Bach. Apparently he’s pushing the boundaries with exciting improvisations and experiments with well known compositions by composers like Ravel and Dvorak….what I wouldn’t give to see him do an electrifying performance of ‘Bolero’. He’s also composed and performed his own piano concertos (if only we could be so lucky to see one in Hanoi!) and composed film scores.

For me, the best part of the program came after interval when 8 of his 13 compositions written for piano and string quartet and called ‘Sudden Fiction’ were played by Yamashita and the VNSO. The transcription of the work for full orchestra would have been daunting. My favorites were the experimental pieces, ‘Beginning’, ‘Yawaragi’, ‘Chiasma’, and ‘Sudden Final’ which all had the orchestra doing some marvellous atonal stuff at times …plus a bit of Phillip Glassish gorgeousness for good measure. With the pianist doing his bit with fingers, arms and elbows on the keyboard, it sometimes amounted to edge of your seat listening (and looking…if you were sensible enough to book a seat with a full keyboard view).

One of the best parts of the night was seeing how much fun the members of the orchestra were having…although their concentration playing the pieces mentioned above was intense. When they did the brassy big band bits they were just about show stoppers. Next time they do a gig with Mr Yamashita they’ll be physically grooving and moving it just as rhythmically as the Jack Dorsey or the Glenn Miller boys used to do. When they gave us their version of a ‘Happening’ and jazzed up a few of their evergreen classical numbers into a semi improvisational set, they were grinning from ear to ear (though, mind you that’s a difficult feat for those in the brass and wind sections).

An entertaining night. Even the talented guys from the orchestra who joined Yamashita in a Jazz Combo almost made themselves look cool.

We began the night emotively, and after the delightful encore, as the enthusiastic and prolonged clapping reluctantly faded, most of us would have exited the century old, grand dame with our thoughts returning to the awful catastrophe in Japan.

Two slices of You Tube show Yamashita doing great things with Greensleeves

and then there’s the Yosuke Yamashita Trio’s original and awesome version of a Chiasma from way way back: