MUSIC REVIEW : New Music Group Jazzes It Up With Mackey Premiere

Not all the concerts on the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group’s Green Umbrella series draw well. Some of them fall measurably short of filling the Japan America Theatre’s 841 seats.

Attendance at the penultimate Group event of the season on Monday, however, was no problem. The hall looked full, and its denizens proved enthusiastic--joyous, even.

The attraction seemed to be the world premiere of Steven Mackey’s “Deal,” for instrumental ensemble and two soloists who had crossed-over from the world of jazz improvisation, celebrated electric guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Joey Baron.

Created specifically for these soloists, the new piece provides them with a tight accompanimental framework by a mixed instrumental ensemble, then leaves them alone with their muses to mesh with the background.

Mackey’s copious program notes for this first performance--the work was funded for the New Music Group by longtime new-music patron Betty Freeman--describe the complex process by which the composer came to write the piece. He attempted at first to create a notated electric guitar part--”a recipe for how to sound like Bill Frisell”--but later rejected that approach in favor of letting Frisell be Frisell.

In the event, the four-part piece emerged disjunct, rather amorphous and often unbalanced. And not much in the jaunty and hyperactive Mackey style.

Soloists Frisell and Baron, ghettoized at stage left, with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the ensemble at center, seemed to be working steadily and colorfully at their improvisations. Even so, their sounds did not often sit well atop their colleagues’ playing, but rather got buried under it. Indeed, the 15 Philharmonic members (and guest) appeared to overplay the composer’s Stravinskyan accompaniment.

Given the layout of the new piece, one can be optimistic in one wise: Subsequent performances have to be different, and probably differently balanced, than this one.

The first half of this evening brought three fascinating recent pieces, all superbly performed.

First, there was Scott Lindroth’s haunting Duo (1990) for a Siamese-twinlike pair of violins, here Mark Baranov and Mark Kashper, who follow each other all over the musical landscape, with a creepy and virtuosic inseparability.

Then there was August Read Thomas’ “Chant,” another complicated, note-rich haunter, beautifully essayed by cellist Daniel Rothmuller and pianist Gloria Cheng (the guest).

Finally, conducted by Salonen, came the Los Angeles premiere of Zhou Long’s “Tiang Ling” (Nature and Spirit), a multifaceted, poetic, quarter-hour concertino for pipa (the four-string lute) and 12 instruments. Wu Man was the expert and exquisite soloist.