Christine Jensen leads the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal in two large-scale works. First off comes a composition by Jensen herself – a five-movement work that pays tribute to great jazz artists who helped fashion her own style as both composer and improviser: John Coltrane, Lee Konitz, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Wheeler, and Jan Jarczyk (her first teacher).Then we hear a suite from Gershwin’s immortal opera Porgy and Bess in an arrangement by Gil Evans. This is the suite recorded by Miles Davis and his band, conducted by Evans, and released to great acclaim in 1959. It was one of the finest collaborations between Evans and Davis, and has gone down in jazz history as a monument of orchestral jazz. All the opera’s best-known numbers are here, including Bess, you is my woman now, It ain’t necessarily so, There’s a boat that’s leaving soon for New York, and of course Summertime.
ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE JAZZ DE MONTRÉAL
Christine JENSEN, conductor
Ingrid JENSEN, trumpet
Sienna DAHLEN, vocalist
Christine JENSEN
Under the Influence Suite
George GERSHWIN
Suite from Porgy and Bess
