The title of the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival is also the thesis statement for this year’s entire EIF programme. All Rise is intended to be a celebration of integration, pluralism and collective acceptance, ‘togetherness and ascendance’, at a time when such notions could hardly be less in vogue.
It takes a big work to live up to the billing. Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’s 12-part symphony, which premièred in New York in 1999, certainly doesn’t lack scale or ambition. For this mammoth hybrid composition for jazz ensemble, symphony orchestra and choir, Marsalis and his Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra were joined at the Usher Hall by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers. With more than 200 performers on stage under the baton of James Gaffigan, this was a monumental endeavour designed for maximum impact.
The man himself was tucked away among the body of the JLCO, emphasising the intrinsically collegiate nature of the symphony, both musically and thematically. ‘It’s my piece,’ he recently stated, ‘but it’s not my show.’ In the stalls, we could see the snout of his trumpet rearing up for a couple of blazing solos in the second set, but he was otherwise just one of the masses.
The 12 movements were split into three groups of four by two intervals. The various attempts at integration – between orchestra and big band, between melody and rhythm, between America’s north and south – were often far from seamless, but perhaps that was partly the point. A rich but somewhat scruffy sprawl, All Rise embraces Stravinsky, Gershwin, Dixieland, plantation stomps and African chants, gospel shouts and hymnal Allelujahs, salsa, tango, blues, improvised jazz, train rhythms and funeral music. An acceptance of confusion – rather than the dread ‘fusion’ – is baked into a work that seeks common ground often by sheer force of will. The third movement, ‘Wild Strumming Of Fiddles’, was not alone in failing to wholly convince in its attempt to connect ragtime to its Celtic source music.
The snout of his trumpet reared up for a couple of blazing solos, but he was otherwise just one of the masses
All Rise is overwhelming, excessive, entirely too much – as though Marsalis is demanding not just that humanity but every type of music under the American sun should hold hands. And yet the overall effect was joyously affirming, most often when the choir roared into life. At the close, as a second line New Orleans parade played us down the aisle and out into the street, I looked around and everyone was smiling. For a few hours, at least, the EIF seemed to have achieved its stated aim.
Even two or three years ago, a prominent Scottish indie band celebrating the 30th anniversary of their most acclaimed album would have been a slam dunk booking for the EIF. These days, the festival’s contemporary music programme is sadly depleted, and so it was left to Fringe By The Sea to do the honours as Belle And Sebastian took a spirited gallop through If You’re Feeling Sinister.
One of the newer Edinburgh festival satellites, Fringe By The Sea takes place over a week in the comely seaside town of North Berwick, 20 miles east of the capital, and has cultivated a pleasing mini festival vibe. A lodestar of 1990s indie pop (as opposed to indie rock), If You’re Feeling Sinister has always left me more or less cold, but performed in a big top, with a crystalline PA and the cool salt air filtering through, the album’s innate tweeness and general air of bookish self-satisfaction felt much reduced.
The group performed the album in sequence, its baroque touches – violin, recorder, cello and trumpet – faithfully integrated with more traditional group instrumentation. A sense of cheerful communality was achieved without recourse to cliché or cheap sentiment. ‘Fox In The Snow’ was tender and beautiful. Singer Stuart Murdoch donned a pantomime horse’s head to trot around during ‘Judy And The Dream Of Horses’ and high-fived his way into the crowd while singing ‘Piazza, New York Catcher’.
A handful of songs from across the catalogue followed the album set. By the time they launched into the glammy stomp of ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’, joined by dozens of dancers plucked from the crowd, there were almost as many people on stage as there were during All Rise – and almost as many people smiling.
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