Imitation of a Kiss

This project was commissioned by the New Directions Music Series of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Jazz Passengers pieces have always been described as compositionally rich and cinematic. There was always a sense within the band, as well as from supporters of the band that arranging these pieces for orchestra would be a gratifying and natural extension of the work.

Bill Ware, the band's vibist, had always been known for his harmonic and theoretical expertise. Working with the classical cellist Sara Wollin on arrangements for her chamber fusion cd. He became deeply interested in extended symphonic orchestration. Along with Roy Nathanson's natural instincts and appreciation of odd orchestrational combinations, the backbone of this new collaboration was founded. With Mr. Ware's deepening knowledge of musical computer programs and history of classical arranging and orchestration as a solid base, the group moved into this new area with gusto.

Ten of the group's songs were orchestrated (mostly by Mr. Ware) for the premier in Buffalo in 2001. Under the direction of conductor Randall Craig Fleischer, the orchestra was very enthusiastic about the complex orchestrations. The orchestrations brought out the Brecht/Weil influences in the music while still allowing for the swinging individual soloistic interpretations of the band members. Aspects of late nineteenth century composition mixed with influences from Mahler and Berg to create something truly new and different in a classical/jazz fusion.

The next performance in London in 2002 was with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Robert Ziegler. The collaboration between the Passengers and Mr. Ziegler is sure to continue as there was a great mutual appreciation between the two parties. The concert was wonderfully received by the sold out audience and further collaboration between the band and the BBC Concert Orchestra is also being planned.

Keaton's Bar & Grill

After years of experimenting with odd structures and unconventional combinations of music and lyrics with the Jazz Passengers, Six Degrees Records offered Roy Nathanson the opportunity to create and record a jazz suite that utilized these skills. The result was "The Fire at Keaton's Bar and Grille", a cd released in l999 to wide acclaim and subsequently performed in New York, Great Britain and Holland.

"Keaton's" is the story of a mythical utopian bar and the characters that inhabit it. The eclectic songs profile these characters and follow a loose trajectory that culminates in the bar burning down. Roy Nathanson wrote the music while the lyrics were provided by longtime collaborators Ray Dobbins, David Cale, Elvis Costello as well as Mr. Nathanson himself. The cd also proved to be the last recorded work by the great jazz organist Charles Earland.

The eclectic mix of characters and music includes organ music that sonically implies 70's organ bars but employs odd meter, structure and eliptical, poetic lyrics. As John Parales described the music in the New York Times, "Mr. Nathanson has a gift for counterpoint, meshing irregular riffs to mix spaciousness and propulsion; the song cycle included unaccompanied saxophone quartets, unconventional funk tunes and a modernist tango. Even the ballads challenged the singers with tricky chromatic leaps." The sixteen piece ensemble races through the diverse pallete of music with a combination of skill and romance.

The narrator of the story was Elvis Costello, the central character of the piece. The other singer/characters included longtime collaborator Debbie Harry, Darius De Haas, Corey Harris, Richard Butler (of the Psychedelic Furs), Nancy King, Kenny Washington, David Driver and a host of others. The band members funtioned as bar patrons as well. The musicians included all the member of the Jazz Passengers as well as other longtime musical collaborators of Mr. Nathanson, all of whom are well known from the jazz world.

The live performance piece was "directed" by Macarthur Award winner John Jesurn.Mr. Jesurun created a complex visual mosaic around bars fire and other powereful video images that were juxtaposed aginst the performance of the music itself. The effect was a deeply layered aural and visual environment that pulsatd with musical ideas. The London Spectator said of "Keaton's", "This imiganitive production (was) by far the most successful of its kind in Jazz".

Creature from the Black Lagoon

In 1997, the Jazz Passengers were asked to join the trend of new scores for old movies. They chose to do 20 minutes of the Jack Arnold's 3D cult classic, "The Creature From the Black Lagoon". Replacing both the music and dialogue, they performed this snippet during a concert at Town Hall in New York City and then forgot about the project. Thanks to a commission from "Celebrate Brooklyn" they have revisited the film and redid the entire sountrack, dialogue, sound effects and music, from beginning to end. Along with some suitable hats and a lot of improvised dialogue, the new original score uses signature l950s musical gestures to create an entirely new language.

Conducted by Norman Yamada, the regular band (Bill Ware, Curtis Fowlkes, Roy Nathanson, Brad Jones, E.J. Rodriguez and Sam Bardfeld) is joined by the guitar and comic antics of Ilene Weiss. Bill Ware and Roy Nathanson's filmscore work and Bill's work on the Passengers Orchestra project have helped them create a very disciplined score that still has room for the individual personalities of the players. Suffice it to say that the 6000 plus people who watched it with their 3D glasses firmly affixed to their faces on a warm July night in Prospect Park Brooklyn had one helluva blast.

The film itself stand as the pinnacle of Jack Arnold's extravagant career as a director. With other 1950s B movie classics like "It came from Outer Space" (l953) and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (l957) to his credit, as well as episodes of everything from "Gilligan's Islan" to "The Brady Bunch" to "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", Arnold had his hands in a shocking percentage of the camp canon of the last fifty years. Bu "Creature" has penetrated our popular culture consciousness, if there is such a thing, more deeply than the rest.

The plot of the film involves a scientific expedition up a remote part of the Amazon River. Led by Richard Carlson (as Dr. David Reed), with the voluptuous Julie Adams (as Kay Lawrence) by his side, the group runs afoul of a prehistoric monster ­ a hideous, semi-amphibious gill-man from a lost age. They ensnare the beast, but it escapes and then blocks their passage, marooning them in the forbidding jungle waterways. The marauding creature then returns to haunt its former tormentors, claiming lives..and a captive of its own. As the posters declared back in the day, "Not since the beginning of time has the world beheld terror like this!"

With far more acting experience then perhaps any jazz band before them to their credit, members of the Jazz Passengers go at their voiceover tasks with aplomb, making awful jokes and useless references that blaze a trail from unzipped zippers to good old George Bush.

Those who saw the Passengers workshop version of "Jazz Passengers in Egypt" at La Mama in 1991 will have waited a patient 13 years (a veritable Bar Mitzvah of time) for the group to reach a level of mayhem that exceeds those early expectations.

Stay tuned for further trips to this fearsome Lagoon!