Quartet West Update

After reading numerous paragraphs of Don Heckman’s review of Charlie Haden’s performance at the Getty (“Charlie Haden’s ‘Art of the Song’ Breaks From Album Format,” May 8), one learns absolutely nothing about this concert. We’d like to enlighten the readers of what really transpired that evening.

This was a night of magic, with a sophisticated and ethereal sense not recognized by the critic. We found the music to be healing and simply beautiful.

Camaraderie between the strings and Quartet West was very apparent. Respect and musical quality excelled in this fusion of classical and jazz disciplines. The comments that Quartet West played music from other CDs seems absurd--all of Haden’s music is “The Art of the Song.” Let’s not be so rigid. And while Shirley Horn didn’t sing, that was known by all who attended as it was not advertised, nor was it in the program.

STEPHANIE FERRIS

and IRA GORNICK

Santa Monica

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Re: Mr. Heckman’s review of Quartet West at the Getty, in which he writes that it’s “hard to understand” why we elected to play a Parker blues rather than my orchestrating Lennie Tristano’s “far more intense” blues passages. Well, let me explain.

While the spontaneous improvisation of the introduction to Tristano’s 1956 “Requiem” could be considered “classical” in its approach (lending itself to orchestration), the task of orchestrating what follows is another matter entirely. It would mean re-creating Lennie’s feeling for the time--that relationship between his singing line and its exact placement in the rhythm.

This is the art of jazz that is highly individual and cannot be expressed by classically trained musicians (and even many so-called jazz improvisers, for that matter). It’s not about the notes, it’s about the feeling. And so we (Quartet West) chose to play instead “Back Home Blues” by its dedicatee, Charlie Parker. Bland, perhaps, but a valuable 12-bar lesson in the very rhythm I’m speaking of.

ALAN BROADBENT

Pianist, arranger, conductor

with Quartet West

Santa Monica