Makiyo Sakai: Silver Painting

For many people, classical music can be very relaxing, a soothing balm at certain times, or in uncertain times. Some jazz music is regarded in the same way, and there is even smooth jazz, after all.

What about both classical and jazz, together? Classical jazz, or jazz classical? Jazz-classical crossovers, fusion, or merges?¹

Jazz-classical crossover albums, songs, motifs, and themes inevitably surface in a survey of famous recordings, performances, and musicians in jazz history. These can be helpful for newcomers to the genre who find footholds in familiar compositional elements, styles, or even jazzy covers of well-known classical songs. Naturally, there is Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”², but also bands and musicians like Modern Jazz Quartet (“jazz with classical music elements”), Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett (even with some specific classical music recordings), Duke Ellington, Kenny Barron (Classical Jazz Quartet Plays Bach/Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninov albums), the fullness of albums whose titles ending with Strings or Orchestra… and this is just scratching the surface.

Add to this colorful mix Japanese flutist Makiyo Sakai’s first two albums, Silver Painting from 2016 and Pictures at an Exhibition from 2018. Flutist, composer, and performer Sakai keeps a busy schedule with multiple different combos and solo performances, recording, and music composition in genres spanning jazz, Brazilian, pop, and more. However, her first two leader albums were focused specifically on introducing her through the medium of classical songs played by her jazz quartet.

Silver Painting is a fifty-five-minute album featuring Sakai on flute with piano, bass, and drums, with guitar joining on two tracks. The group plays ten songs from the popular classical music repertoire and the great composers. Bach, Beethoven, Borodin, Debussy, Fauré, Paganini, Ravel, Satie, and Tchaikovsky are featured, with one piece from each and two from Fauré.

It’s an attractive concept with a fun sound and attention to detail. The classical dimensions of the music are clear and in the forefront, starting off right from the gentle sway and beauty of track #1 “Sicilienne” (keen TV viewers may remember this piece as the music played briefly but movingly by Michael McKean’s character Chuck McGill on Better Call Saul).

Throughout the album, the group honors the composed classical framing with noticeable, but non-gimmicky, jazz alterations. There are mild jazz reharmonizations, sections for improvisation, and trading phrases between instruments just like any other regular jazz session.

While some moods are modest and retrained as might be expected of some classical settings, the most visible jazz influence slowly begins to appear through the pulsing beats: Swing- and Latin-time feels are set by the rhythm section’s adept jazz piano comping, bass line walking, and snappy drumset rhythms. Plentiful and exciting jazz improvisation is another highlighted jazz feature overlaying these classical harmonies and themes, and Sakai’s impressive technique, sound, and ideas are masterfully showcased on this introductory debut.

The mixture of song moods could be split into three sections of a pie, roughly. There are five classical-jazz set pieces (#1, 3, 6, 9, 10), three bossa or Latin-ish rides (#2, 4, 7), and laidback groovy-heavy moments with Fender Rhodes and funky grooves happening (#5, 8).

When laid out in album sequence, the flow moves through (from #1) calm, light and delicate with a hint of blues, to bright and peppery, relaxing, spunky, groovy, elegant melancholy, sweet, smooth, uptempo swing, and (to #10) jazzy scenes, ending the final song “Clair de lune” with a sprinkling of “Stardust” as a tender jazz quote.

As the album title suggests, these are ten scenes painted in silver by Sakai’s sterling sound, flying over the brushed backdrops from her jazz combo, and framed by a great selection of gorgeous classical compositions.

Liner Notes

(Translated from an excerpt of Masahisa Segawa’s original Japanese liner notes for this album. Segawa (1924-2021) was a highly influential and prominent Japanese jazz critic, historian, writer, and producer who wrote about and supported the jazz scene in Japan passionately for decades.)

…

About the musical program:

01 Sicilienne (Fauré)

French composer Fauré composed this piece for cello and piano in 1893. It was later incorporated into the fifth part of his Pelléas et Mélisande Suite. It is beautiful and distinctive when the flute plays the harp arpeggios, and has been arranged for the duo format of piano and a solo instrument. Makiyo Sakai’s flute starts with the pretty melody, the rhythm section joins quietly, and flute improvises delicately before returning to the melody.

02 Valse des fleurs (Waltz of the Flowers) (Tchaikovsky)

This piece is an extremely popular song, the eighth piece of the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. On this album, guitar enters with a bossa nova rhythm and flute plays the melody, coloring the mood skillfully before moving to light and relaxed adlibbing.

03 Gymnopedie (Satie)

Satie composed this three-song piece in 1888 at the age of 23 while he was working as a pianist at a cabaret in Montmartre. It became one of Satie’s signature pieces and used the name of an ancient Spartan festival as its title. The exotically tinged melody is decorated with a sweetly deep tone and elegant adlibs, and features a unison ending with the piano to close it out beautifully.

04 Caprice No. 24 (Paganini)

The legendary violinist Paganini made full use of his superior technique when composing the 24 Pieces for Solo Violin, of which #24 became the most popular. These have been used for solo performances on various instruments, as with Benny Goodman’s clarinet solo. On this album, an uptempo drum solo starts things off, flute adlibs with rapid phrases, and a long drum solo brings things to a boil.

05 Polovtsian Dances (Borodin)

This is a composition from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, a song from the middle of the second act. It became very famous, and the melody was later used in the widely sung popular song Stranger in Paradise. The drums are arranged with a bossa-style back-beat rhythm, and the flute adlibs while decorating the melody slightly. The Fender Rhodes electric piano takes a long solo and ends with interchanges with the flute.

06 Pavane Op. 50 (Fauré)

This was composed as an orchestral piece in 1886 and later used as the final song in the opera Masques et Bergamasques. The pleasantly elegant and refined melody is often played by flute and similar instruments. Here too, the flute plays the tune with respect, and the bass takes a stately solo in the middle.

07 Pathetique Sonata - 2nd movement (Beethoven)

This was composed in 1798 and is one of Beethoven’s three great piano sonatas alongside Moonlight and Appassionata. The melancholy-laden melody is played movingly by the flute and rhythm section with added guitar. Improvisations in the second half expertly heighten the sense of pathos.

08 Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) (Ravel)

This is a piano solo masterpiece written in 1902 and represents Ravel’s early period during which he was studying at the Paris Conservatory. It is said that this composition was inspired by viewing a portrait of Queen Margarita, painted by the 17th-century court painter Diego Velázquez, at the Louvre Museum. Ravel himself arranged it for orchestral performance, and many others have produced arrangements for piano and solo instrument duos, string ensembles, and the like. It’s a short piece that is graceful and possesses a delicate beauty. It gained fame in America in 1939 when adapted into the popular song “The Lamp is Low”. The flute slowly sets up a romantic mood over a background of electric piano, and artful improvisation follows.

09 Siciliano (Bach)

Siciliano is a music and dance style that stretches back to the end of the Renaissance musical era and early Baroque music. The music in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana is one well-known example. Bach’s Sicilianos include two pieces. The one played here is the middle movement from BWV 1031, Sonata in E-flat Major for Flute (another is the ritardando section from BWV 1017, Sonata in C Minor for Violin).

Following a bass intro, the flute plays the melody slowly. The piano enters at a fast tempo for a change in mood. The flute continues adlibbing with quick runs, heating things up when trading fours with the piano and drums. It’s fun to see Sakai’s jazz sensibilities on full display.

10 Clair de lune (Debussy)

This is the third movement from Suite Bergamaque, a four-part piano solo piece written in 1890. Its easy-to-love theme has become extremely popular. The Bergamasque of the title, meaning Bergamo dance, was taken from a poem by Paul Verlaine. Piano and flute play the first half of the original music slowly, then take the second half at a faster tempo with free-spirited, intertwining improvisation.

Silver Painting by Makiyo Sakai

• Makiyo Sakai - flute

• Yoshihiko Naya - piano/Rhodes

• Masayuki Tawarayama - bass

• Akira Yamada - drums

• Jun Kimura - acoustic guitar (#2, 7)

Released in 2016 on Pony Canyon as PCCY-30231

Japanese names: Makiyo Sakai 酒井麻生代 (Sakai Makiyo) Yoshihiko Naya 納谷嘉彦 (Naya Yoshihiko) Masayuki Tawarayama 俵山昌之 (Tawarayama Masayuki) Akira Yamada 山田玲 (Yamada Akira) Jun Kimura 木村純 (Kimura Jun)

Related Albums

• Banda Feliz: Boa Viagem (2020)

Audio and Video

• Audio for track #6 “Pavane Op. 50”:

• Audio for track #1 “Sicilienne”

• Excerpt from track #2 “Waltz of the Flowers” (at 1:00)

• Makiyo Sakai Quintet playing John Coltrane's “Moment’s Notice”

• Excerpt from “Siciliano”, track #9 on this album:

1. Pianist Ethan Iverson recently shared an engaging article on the “Jazz Brain/Classical Brain” divide, which aligned serendipitously with what I had been thinking about this week.

2. Iverson’s “The Worst Masterpiece: ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ at 100” and his follow-ups TT 359 and TT 360 are also worth mentioning.