On Friday August 17th, Jeffrey Silberschlag and his Chesapeake Orchestra, and Woodlawn Farm in Ridge, played host to Don Stapleson and his “Clazzical Jam” jazz quartet for an evening of unusual and delightful jazz music, to close out the concert season there. The group’s name is indeed spelled with two Z’s, as their forte is classical works rearranged as jazz . Don is principle saxophonist for the Chesapeake Orchestra, teaches sax at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, his alma mater, and is a respected flutist.
The quartet consisted of Don on flute, Henry Nam (also an alum of SMCM) on keyboard, Fred Lieder on cello, and Craig Silberschlag (Jeffrey’s brother) on drums. Don’s flute is unusual in that it is bent so that it’s played vertically, rather like an oboe or a clarinet, but the sound is still pure flute.
They opened the concert with “Softly as a Morning Sunrise” from the “New Moon” operetta by Sigmund Romberg, rearranged of course into a lively jazz piece. A rearranged waltz by Erik Satie, and “Bye Bye Blackbird” followed. A lovely slow piece, Benjamin Godard’s “Berceuse” from the opera “Jocelyn” changed the pace. Returning to a lively pace, Don dedicated Victor Young’s “Beautiful Love” to his lovely wife Kathy. For this piece especially, Henry seemed to dance on his keyboard, while Craig “played” with his drums!
Don told us a charming story about Antonin Dvorak, best known for his popular “New World” symphony. When Dvorak was brought to the U.S. to find inspiration for and write that magnificent work, he lived in a hotel adjacent to New York City’s Central Park, and his room had a wonderful view of the park. A visiting friend told him, “You have the most gorgeous front yard!”. Entertained by that story, we were then treated to “Nuevo Mundo”, a bossa nova adaptation of the lovely “Largo” from the New World Symphony, while Woodlawn’s cicadas joined in loudly.
Don then bet us we were wondering, “What if Dave Brubeck wrote Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?”, and played “Ode to Desmond”, rearranged from that symphony’s “Ode to Joy”.
After intermission, we especially liked the new arrangement of “Summertime”, from George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess”. Another personal favorite is the Maurice Ravel orchestration of Gabriel Fouré’s haunting “Pavane” – which was played that night as a bossa nova. Don used a flutter technique with his flute at the end, followed by a hearty laugh as a cicada landed on his arm!
A very lively and exciting piece was Herbie Hancock’s “Cantelope Island” from the 60s, later adapted as
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