Pianist, vibraphonist jazz up classical pieces

Over the past decade, Boston's venerable Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra has explored the affinities of classical and jazz music in a yearly concert featuring such illustrious improvisers as Dave Brubeck, Marian McPartland, and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars. The orchestra would play a classical piece, the jazz performer would play a jazz piece, and the idea was for the audience to make the connections between the two.

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This year, the lines are blurring, and the connections are more explicit: The jazz improvisations, this time by vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Makoto Ozone, will be based entirely on classical compositions. ''We're going to play a Scarlatti piece, and they're going to play a Scarlatti piece," Burton said in a phone interview from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he moved last year after retiring from Berklee College of Music. ''We're doing a Rachmaninov, and they're doing a Rachmaninov. And that, for me, will be really effective. Then we're going to try to play together on the last piece."

The inspiration for the collaboration was Burton and Ozone's 2002 CD ''Virtuosi," in which they present faithful but swinging interpretations of compositions by Domenico Scarlatti, Johannes Brahms, Maurice Ravel, and Samuel Barber, among others.

Burton had taken part in the Handel and Haydn jazz concert once before, with Chick Corea. Both he and Ozone are latecomers to classical music, but Ozone got there first. ''I'm about seven years old as a classical player," Ozone said in a phone interview. ''Ten years ago, I had no idea that I was going to be doing this."

Ozone's first classical performance was of ''Rhapsody in Blue" with an orchestra in Japan. ''The conductor really liked the way I played it, and we got together again, and next time I played Mozart," he said. ''Then word started to get around." He now plays at least five symphony dates a year.

It was after he performed Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 in 2001 that he and Burton decided to incorporate classical compositions on their next duet recording. But they had to find suitable pieces.

''I wasn't that familiar with the classical repertoire, so I bought a slew of records and put them on and just let them play," Burton said. ''And about every 10, 12 pieces there would be one that would jump out at me and I'd go, OK, I could hear this with a Latin feel, or this would be a great jazz waltz, or the harmonies here sound like they would be easy to play on."

On ''Virtuosi," the two play the original composition as an opening statement, then add improvisation or rearrangement to make a jazz statement. ''We felt that we were pretty true to the composer's intentions, even though some of them would have been shocked with what we did," he said.

Far from being shocked, Grammy voters nominated the CD in the classical crossover category. Another fan of ''Virtuosi" was Grant Llewellyn, musical director of Handel and Haydn. Burton had taken part in the annual concert once before, with Corea. When the CD came out, Llewellyn was impressed with its fidelity to both jazz and classical values. ''It just struck me as the obvious, perfect vehicle for us to try to put a program together with them," he said.

It was Llewellyn's idea for the concert to end on Darius Milhaud's 1923 jazz-influenced ballet score ''La Creation du Monde," with Burton, Ozone, and the orchestra all playing together. Indeed, Milhaud is something of a linchpin in the field of jazz/classical crossover. Not only was his ''La Creation" among the first concert pieces with a jazz accent, predating Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue," but years later he taught a young Brubeck, who went on to incorporate classical influences into his own jazz music, as well as composing concert works.

When Burton got a recording and score of ''La Creation," he thought the heavy orchestration would make it hard for the duo to play along with the orchestra throughout. ''But there are some places where the orchestra comes to the end of a section and then starts another section. So I suggested that when we get to that point the orchestra will break and we'll improvise based on what we just heard.

''Then in the final part . . . we'll actually play along with them some. We haven't tried this yet," he said this week, before the two were scheduled to start rehearsals with the orchestra. ''It could be pretty interesting."

Llewellyn, too, is awaiting the result. ''At the end of the day, I hope we come up with something that's going to hang together," he said. ''But one of the wild, wonderful, but scary things about these programs is that we never know what it's all going to add up to. But there's so many connections here that we're going to have fun finding out what we have in common rather than worrying about anything too precious."

"Virtuosi Jazz" with Gary Burton, Makoto Ozone, and the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra takes place at Symphony Hall on Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $26, $30, $44, and $60. Call 617-266-3605, go to Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Ave., or order online at www.handelandhaydn.org.