Loussier Mixes Classical, Jazz With Uneven Results

Is to swing Bach also to soften Bach? For pianist Jacques Loussier, who began cross-filtering classical and jazz more than 40 years ago, the question still nags, as it did Thursday night at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.

Loussier and his fine, versatile trio essayed jazzed-up Bach for the concert’s first half, and jazz-colored arrangements of Vivaldi, Debussy, Satie and Ravel in the second.

The crowd was generous, in quantity and enthusiasm, but at least one listener was plagued by doubt. Idealists and musical egalitarians have been trying to find, or force, a common ground between jazz and classical music for decades. Most recently, pianist Uri Caine has daringly reinvented and recast themes of Mahler, Schumann and Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations.

Excerpts from that masterpiece showed up on Thursday’s program, but the result seemed if not sacrilegious, at least counterintuitive to the composer’s intent. Bach’s organ tour de force Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, all dressed up in jazz garb, seemed robbed of the power of either the original or of jazz’s relaxed intensity.

Loussier is accomplished, to be sure, although his improvisation skills seem tenuous. Improv sections tend to be modest parcels, tucked into overly elaborate arrangements full of fussy ensemble accents. He left the more extended, elaborate improvisations to bassist Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac and drummer Andre Arpino.

Things fared better after intermission, as Loussier found smoother idiomatic transitions between jazz and classical modes in the scores of Debussy, Ravel and especially Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1,” which suddenly sounded like a Bill Evans tune (minus the lyrical improvisation).

The jury is still out, after all these years.