Raising Caine continued

The Goldberg Variations may well be Caine’s most daring leap. Conceived in part as a nod to the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death in 1750, the album features not only Caine’s usual contributors but also European classical musicians affiliated with West German Radio (WDR), which helped sponsor the project. The WDR’s involvement changed the playing field for Caine, who had initially considered performing the Variations in their original solo-piano instrumentation. Instead the endeavor features over 50 individual participants, dispatched in various small ensembles and at different moments.
    The variations in this adaptation form a broken sequence; Bach’s original miniatures are presented in order but interspersed with pieces of Caine’s invention. This revision yields 70 variations, more than twice the original number. A few hew close to the script or subject Bach’s source material to subtle alterations in texture; in other cases, the alterations aren’t so subtle. As the Kettwiger Bach Ensemble sings an arrangement of Variation 10, David Moss fibrillates among them like a Tourette Syndrome sufferer; his incomprehensible mutterings are peppered with ejaculations like “IM-PORtance!” and “Hey Bach!” Meanwhile, Caine turns Variation 14—one of Glenn Gould’s most dazzling displays on his 1955 Goldberg recording—into a commentary on virtuosity, with a sampled harpsichord playing at unmanageable velocity and accompanied by various percussive splashes (courtesy of the two-man programming team known as Boomish). And in Variation 30, the Kettwiger choir slurs its notes in mock inebriation—a nod to Bach’s inclusion, within the piece, of two popular drinking songs.
    Caine based his interpretive process on a simple premise: “The idea was to take a very fixed form and subject it—either by writing or improvisation—to new ways of playing. As well as having the joy of playing Bach in a group. It’s this double idea of trying to find a way for the group to be able to do many different things in one piece, and from moment to moment. So it could have been any other piece, but I’m glad it was the Bach, because the Bach theme is thirty-two measures with four eight-bar themes; it’s almost exactly like a pop song. It could be ‘I Got Rhythm.’”
    In his own compositions, Caine highlights stylistic connections between Bach and his contemporaries, as in “H”ndel” (scored for harpsichord, gamba and baroque trumpet), and explores the vicissitudes of the 32-bar song form—“The Jaybird Lounge Variation,” for example, is a hard-driving post-bop romp. Finally, there are the variations that explore more abstract formal relationships with the originals. One can almost imagine Caine’s grin during one of these, “Variation on B-A-C-H,” a jagged serial composition based on intervals suggested by the letters in Bach’s name.
    The rapid-fire presentation of Caine’s Variations may seem like a postmodern ploy. But even this is a logical extension of Bach’s original intent; the Goldberg Variations has always been known for its quick movement from piece to piece, and the extreme contrast between pieces. Caine describes this as “almost a cartoon effect.”
    In Europe, response to the project was mixed, to say the least. “We played at a lot of Bach festivals where I’m sure they could not have sanctioned what we were doing,” Caine explains. “For instance, playing at the Dresden Bach Festival. You know: the mayor’s there, and all the officials, and immediately David Moss is screaming and you’re saying ‘No, man.’ The choir takes out their alcohol during the drinking song, and the officials are like: ‘Whoa, you can’t do that here. This is Dresden. This is a serious thing.’” By contrast, the band’s performance at the hallowed Salzburg Festival was followed by a 20-minute standing ovation.
    Jazz audiences were less impassioned. In San Sebastien, where Caine had been commissioned to present seven different projects over the course of six evenings, the Goldberg went on after a piano trio and received a tepid response. At the Vienne Jazz Festival in southern France—whose relatively conservative atmosphere was best embodied by the presence of Wynton Marsalis’ Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, a repertory ensemble currently engrossed in the music of the 1920s and 1930s—the crowd was just as equivocal. This pattern underscores an interesting phenomenon: the relative obscurity of Caine’s music among jazz audiences.
    The contrast between Wynton Marsalis Hon’00 (the most prominent advocate of jazz as “America’s classical music”) and Uri Caine (whose methods challenge the very notion of classicism) could not be more pronounced. Marsalis is jazz’s Number One Celebrity; Caine resides in jazz’s eccentric margins, and rarely presents his projects in the United States. Although they were both in Vienne at the same time, Caine’s ensemble and Marsalis’ band never crossed paths.
    Other musicians, though, have started to pay attention. At the Molde Festival in Norway, the legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea attended both the Urlicht and Goldberg Variations concerts. “It was intense,” Caine says. “Because he told me that he had been preparing for it by listening to the Mahler record and to [Glenn Gould’s] Goldberg Variations. And then he came backstage, and he was hanging. That was sort of thrilling for me, because when I was coming up I was really obsessed with early Chick Corea. It was very encouraging.”
    The Goldberg Variations’ American premiere packed New York’s chic Jazz Standard club last June, and many in the audience were musicians. When I arrived, the only available seat was at the back of the room; I perched on a barstool between D.D. Jackson and Ravi Coltrane, both of whom listened with rapt attention. Between songs, Jackson—a pianist and promising young bandleader with training in both jazz and classical music—sipped a glass of cranberry juice. “I’m a big fan of Uri’s conceptual approach,” he enthused.
    During the set break, Caine approached the bar. Spotting Coltrane—an excellent tenor saxophonist, and son of jazz icon John Coltrane—his face lit up. “Hey, man,” he called, from a few feet away. “Did you bring your horn?”
    Coltrane demurred: “Oh no, man. I can’t play with you guys. You’re the man.”
    Caine shook his head, smiling. “Nonononono.”
    A few minutes later, the band was back on the crowded stage. At the bar, Ravi Coltrane munched thoughtfully on pretzels, nodding his head to the pulse of the music.
    After the last set of the evening, the capacity crowd erupted in applause and cheers. It was a happy moment for Caine, who had never presented any of his classical adaptations in a jazz club setting. It was tempting to see this as a major step towards acceptance in the larger jazz community. But even Caine expresses doubts. For the time being, his projects are more or less relegated to European festivals, especially those with a classical bent.
    “There are certain festivals that are prejudiced against jazz as something they’ve heard millions of times, but my stuff maybe seems new,” the pianist observes. “Even if people hate it, they say, ‘What are you going to do for us next year?’”

Back on West 72nd Street, Uri Caine and Jan Galperin ride an elevator to the eighth floor. Their apartment has a cluttered but comfortable feel. Jan, now a dollmaker by trade, works there during the daytime; her latest prototype, a cherubic baby girl, sits with imploring eyes atop a worktable. A few feet away, Uri’s upright piano hunches in the corner, surrounded by sheaves of paper. One of them, marked “Dave Douglas Sextet,” contains the charts for this evening’s gig. The pianist has only a few moments to spare before heading over to Lincoln Center, of all places, for a soundcheck. The band will be playing a free concert in a plaza, as part of an outdoor summer series.
    A Uri looks at his reflection in the mirror, and asks: “Can I go like this?” He’s wearing an old polo shirt, a pair of shorts, and sandals. Jan doesn’t say anything. He changes into long pants.
    A Soon the pianist is outside again. Late-afternoon August sunshine reflects off the hoods of passing cars. “Man,” he says, “I like these gigs that I can walk to.” He has been a member of the Dave Douglas Sextet since its inception in 1995. Douglas—one of jazz’s leading trumpeters—played with Caine in the Mickey Katz project, and on several of Caine’s albums.
    During the 10-minute stroll to 65th Street, Caine talks about the Jazz at Lincoln Center organization, the difficulties of living as a musician in New York, and some of his future plans. He has received commissions from Concerto Cologne and Frankfurt’s Ensemble Moderne. He has committed to performing new material at the Venice Biennale, the Pompidou Center and a festival in Holland. He’s also planning his next studio efforts: probably a solo piano disc, followed by “another trio thing, and something with electronics.”
    Lincoln Center’s main plaza is strewn with students, tourists and miscellaneous loiterers when Caine arrives. He pauses next to a large fountain and wonders where he’s supposed to meet the band. Standing there with his folder tucked under his arm, he could be a sightseer from out of town, or a professor from the nearby Juilliard School.
    Suddenly, a man in a light gray suit brushes past his right shoulder. It’s Wynton Marsalis, cutting a quick and purposeful diagonal across the plaza. As the trumpeter passes, his eyes meet Caine’s, and he gives a slight, inscrutable nod. It’s almost, but not quite, a wink. And then he turns a corner, and he’s gone.
    Caine makes a wry expression. “What was that look?” he muses aloud. It’s unclear whether Marsalis recognized him; the two musicians have never met. Was that a grin, or a smirk? A tacit acknowledgment, or a smug dismissal? Whatever it was, it was weird.
    A few minutes later, clarinetist/saxophonist Greg Tardy, another member of the Dave Douglas band, walks up. After greeting Caine, he heads for the northwest extension of the plaza; apparently that’s where they’ll be playing. Caine lingers a few more moments at the Fountain CafÈ, drinks a Coke. Then he walks off in the same direction ñ toward the stage, where a grand piano awaits.

Nate Chinen C’98 is a freelance writer based in New York. His music features have appeared in Down Beat, Schwann Inside and the Philadelphia City Paper.