UCI Flutist Seasons the Dance Mix With Score

Last spring, choreographer Donald McKayle heard some taped sketches of electronic music that flutist James Newton, a fellow member of the UC Irvine faculty, had been working on. The next thing Newton knew, McKayle was asking him to compose the music for “Gumbo Ya-Ya,” a ballet for which McKayle had been commissioned by the Kennedy Center in Washington. The work is being presented in San Francisco tonight.

“It all moved very rapidly,” Newton recalled this week. “I had heard McKayle’s name for years and knew he was one of the most respected American choreographers. When you see his work, you understand why. He is able to combine power and sensitivity at the same time. It’s a composer’s dream: Each phrase (of music) can be gift-wrapped in the different movements and expressions he creates. Often, there can be a huge gulf between the music and the choreography, but there can be real integration with his work.”

Newton has garnered his own share of respect. Known worldwide as a scintillating musician who explores both the tradition of jazz and its outer realms, he has won Downbeat magazine’s readers’ and international critics’ polls as best flutist 11 years running.

His reputation as a composer is burgeoning not only in jazz, but also in the European tradition.

His 1985 release “The African Flower,” a reworking of music by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, was Downbeat’s album of the year. A forthcoming release on the AudioQuest Music label (based in San Clemente) will feature Newton’s four-part suite for jazz ensemble written to honor the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, a piece commissioned by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department in 1991.

Meanwhile, his “Lake of Resolution” for flute and chamber orchestra has been played by Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi, and his “Line of Immortality” was premiered by the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players in 1992. Newton currently is on a Guggenheim grant to write his first symphony, set to premier in Germany in 1995.

“Gumbo Ya-Ya” is the first dance piece Newton has written. “When working on this music,” he said, “I thought a lot about movement, about the dancing I saw in the church as a child when I spent time in the South, and about the African tradition of dance. The thing I was interested in was putting the rhythm first.”

“Gumbo” is a further break from Newton’s earlier work in that it is the first electronic piece he has completed. Except for the flute, all the sounds are synthesized or sampled from strings, French horn and clarinet.

“Working on the computer is extremely liberating. If I want to utilize a pizzicato (plucked) string sound, I can have a whole orchestra doing it just the way I want,” he said. “In this illusory world, it’s not a problem to put a percussion ensemble together with the strings, or create any other scenario you can think of. In my head, I can imagine the string orchestra in a village in Senegal with a Senegalese percussion ensemble. In real life, that’s very difficult. But in the electronic world, it’s a possibility.

“My tastes are very broad and there are many different types of music I admire,” Newton said. “With the computer, I can go from one to the other freely. I can use something African and African American and European and then work in Asian influences; no cultural walls exist to limit my expression. If I was working with an ensemble, they might be able to do some things well, but not others.”

Newton found working with McKayle to be very rewarding. “He came up with the plot from sketches I gave him, then I went ahead and completed the music. He gave me a lot of freedom but he also let me know when things needed to be stronger. I just can’t say enough about him. It was an honor to work with someone of his standing and dignity.”