Luckman adds its magic to ‘Nutcracker’

The holiday season arrived early Saturday night at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex with the presentation of a lovely Christmas gift: the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite,” performed by the Luckman Jazz Orchestra.

Transforming a classic orchestral work -- especially one so well-known -- took discerning eyes and imaginative musicality. Both are qualities inherent to the Ellington/Strayhorn partnership. Performing a work devised for the unique soundscape of the Ellington orchestra required insightful musicality and a willingness to tackle a demanding piece of music -- qualities equally inherent to the fine, James Newton-led Luckman ensemble.

Ellington and Strayhorn obviously had fun with their recasting of “The Nutcracker,” adding colorful names as they did so: “Toot Toot Tootie Toot” (for “Dance of the Reed-Pipes”), “The Volga Vouty” (for “Russian Dance”), etc. More important, they remained true to the charm, the humor and the colorful musical shading of the original while casting it in an irresistibly swinging jazz setting.

Newton and the Luckman Orchestra players captured all those qualities, adding a New Orleans-style second line parade through the audience as a joyous topping -- one that Ellington and Strayhorn would surely have loved. The soloing, in addition, was uniformly superb: wildly free-form imagining from trombonist Isaac Smith and trumpeter Richard Grant; extraordinary clarinet flights from Geoff ReyNudell; solid section lead work from trumpeter Bijon Watson and alto saxophonist Charles Owens; and some stylish inventiveness from trumpeter Nolan Shaheed, pianist Lanny Hartley, saxophonist Ann Patterson and trombonist Jacques Voyemant.

The program’s second half was devoted to a more traditional Christmas view, highlighted by Hartley’s lovely arrangements of “We Three Kings” and “The Little Drummer Boy” and climaxing with a spectacular exchange between drummer Leon “Ndugu” Chancler and percussionist Alberto Salas.

Once again, however, the Luckman Orchestra program at Cal State L.A. drew a less than full house. And it’s hard to understand why this superb ensemble -- a Los Angeles treasure -- does not seem to have been discovered by Southern California’s large community of culturally attuned concert-goers.