Pianist Marcus Roberts fuses jazz and classical for his Rhapsody in D

Almost since the emergence of jazz in the 20th century, the boundaries between the American-born genre and classical music have been blurred.

As far back as the 1920s, classical composers incorporated jazz elements into works such as Darius Milhaud’s ballet La création du monde and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It went the other way, too, with jazz pianist James P. Johnson composing his Harlem Symphony in 1932 and jazz saxophonist Stan Getz featuring a string orchestra on his album “Focus” in 1961.

Cross-genre projects also have been a big part of the work of famed jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, who, along with his trio, will perform his Rhapsody in D at the Ravinia Festival with conductor Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on July 16.

“As its title suggests, the Rhapsody in D for Piano and Orchestra pays homage to Gershwin’s two greatest piano-orchestral works — Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F — but its sources of inspiration stretch beyond that,” wrote Chicago Tribune jazz critic Howard Reich in 2016. “The spirit of the brilliant French composer Maurice Ravel, who similarly fell under the spell of Gershwin (and vice versa), hovers about this piece.”

The 18-minute Rhapsody in D had its premiere in August 2016 at the Seiji Ozawa Festival in Japan and has been performed twice since then, including once with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra in Florida. The Ravinia program will mark the work’s debut with a major American orchestra, an event Roberts hopes will spark more performances. 

To understand the genesis of the Rhapsody in D, it’s important to know the history behind it. In 1992, Roberts joined Concordia, a 50-piece orchestra specializing in contemporary music. He served as a soloist for a presentation of Johnson’s Yamekraw, a Negro Rhapsody, which premiered in 1928 with Fats Waller as the pianist. “That was the first thing I did with an orchestra,” Roberts said. It’s no coincidence that the concert was the brainchild of Alsop, who founded Concordia and uncovered the score for the previously lost work. The two have remained friends since. 

In 1995, Roberts and his trio teamed with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra for the world premiere of the pianist’s improvised version of Rhapsody in Blue. For this take, orchestral musicians play their parts as originally conceived by Gershwin, with Roberts and his trio, which consists of a drummer and bassist, adding overlays and sometimes performing on their own. “It’s a true integration,” he said. When appropriate during slow, lyrical sections, the trio sits out and just lets the orchestra play. “It’s all based on hearing and being inspired by the tempos and where the conductor really wants to take his orchestra,” he said. “We just try to find the appropriate response that they can follow and that the people can hear.”  

“You really get to learn something from another cultural point of view, which we’re in desperate need of in this country.” — Marcus Roberts, on his jazz and classical programs 

In his review of the 1995 premiere, Reich wrote: “To say that Roberts ‘improvised’ this Rhapsody actually may be an understatement, for it implies that he simply embellished Gershwin’s score. In fact, Roberts radically reconceived the piano part, using Gershwin’s basic melodic material to create new themes, unexpected harmonies and bracing, utterly modern dissonances. ... By offering sections of stride piano, steeped-in-blue chord progressions and plaintive countermelodies of his own, Roberts made this his Rhapsody as much as Gershwin’s.”

According to Roberts, he encountered opposition from purists to this reworking. “Folks had a hard time with it — why you would change anything,” he said. “I told them, ‘You have 250 [recorded] versions of it played as written, so if you don’t like mine, you can certainly check one of those out.’ ”

But his version remains in demand, and he continues to perform it, along with a similar treatment of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, which he was encouraged to create by famed conductor Seiji Ozawa. “I’m really comfortable with it,” he said of his take on the Rhapsody. “I know what I can do with it, and I’ve played it all over the world since then.”

Sometimes when he plays the work with orchestra, audiences and even some of the musicians expect what Roberts called that “pop jazz kind of stuff.” But he makes it clear: “No, no, no, we’re playing the real stuff, y’all.” By that, he means authentic, no-holds-barred jazz.

Some conductors have been nervous about performing with Roberts, who is blind and unable to see their gestures and baton strokes. Instead, he relies on musical cues, which get worked out in rehearsals. “It really has been a collaborative exchange of cultures,” he said. “I have to trust them. I have to trust that when I play a certain cue that they are going to hear it and come through, and they have to trust that I’m actually going to play it. By the time we get to the concert, we’re all inspired by each other. I love to hear them play, and they always play other hip classical pieces on the program, so you really get to learn and hear something from another cultural point of view, which I think we’re in desperate need of in this country.”

Roberts, 58, a Florida native who started studying the piano at age 5, first gained attention in the 1980s, when he began performing with Wynton Marsalis, including tours with the famous jazz trumpeter’s septet. He has gone on to record two dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, as well as additional releases as a sideman. His style was influenced by early jazz pianists, as reflected in his album New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1 (2009), which includes music by Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller.   

In his breaks from teaching at Florida State University, Roberts devotes much of his time to orchestral collaborations, similar to what he will be doing at Ravinia. Besides his reworkings of the two Gershwin works for piano and orchestra, Roberts has written two such works of his own. In 2013, he and his trio joined conductor Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for the unveiling of Spirit of the Blues: Piano Concerto in C Minor.   

While Rhapsody in D is inspired in part by Roberts’ work with the two Gershwin pieces, it also draws on Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and even Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring, as well as gospel music and the multifaceted sounds of New Orleans. The piece’s structure is a cross between standard sonata form and theme and variations. “And that’s because in jazz, a lot of what we do is theme and variations based, so I decided there would be eight variations based on these two main themes, the first of which is a cantabile in D major, very lyrical, and the second in F minor in 6/8 time, a very frivolous, joyful kind of theme,” Roberts said. “Those are the main elements of the piece.” 

Roberts has been featured in a range of jazz concerts at Symphony Center with his trio and other ensembles such as the Count Basie Orchestra; he has performed his improvised version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the CSO in 1996 at Ravinia and in 2005 at Symphony Center. He is thrilled to be back with the ensemble to present one of his own works. 

“It’s one of the greatest orchestras on the planet,” he said. “I’m honored, excited and privileged — all of that. And Marin has always taken a real interest in my work, as I do hers. It’s definitely a big deal for me, absolutely.”