John Lewis

Summary

Dominique Pagani mainly discusses John Lewis as the founder, designer and arranger of the Modern Jazz Quartet. He also places him among the great jazz arrangers, in a later generation1. He grants that Lewis had limited technique as a pianist, but his notes were rare and dense. He recalls that Lewis came from the blues and was Gillespie's arranger2. Above all, he stresses Lewis's attraction to French classical music: Lewis supposedly dreamed of being Rameau, he dreamed of Versailles, and he wrote fugues such as Versailles, Vendôme and Concorde3. He dwells on Sketch, the quartet's encounter with the Beaux Arts String Quartet of New York on the album Third Stream4. In his view, the question cannot be settled: this music is both classical and jazz, and it is neither one nor the other5. He also connects it to a personal memory: he discovered Sketch in his final year of secondary school in Bastia6.

1. 1From Bach to the Pygmies22 Jun 2022 · 17:02
2. 2John Lewis: classical or jazz?29 Jun 2022 · 4:35
3. 3#6 The jazz variation… by Beethoven15 Dec 2020 · 1:51:59
4. 4John Lewis: classical or jazz?29 Jun 2022 · 6:53
5. 5John Lewis: classical or jazz?29 Jun 2022 · 12:50
6. 6#16 Michel Clouscard: “There are no holidays in the concept!”7 Jul 2022 · 21:52

Summary produced automatically from 6 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.