Classical review: Corky melds blues, symphonic

An energetic Corky Siegel was the hit of the evening. Photo / Supplied

Who could be blamed for imagining a young Ethel Merman waiting in the wings of Broadway's Alvin Theatre when Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra launched into Gershwin's Girl Crazy overture?

In 1930, however, Merman would not have heard the snazzy orchestral arrangement by Robert McBride, with brass lustily punching out her signature I Got Rhythm.

Conductor Eckehard Stier took to it like a first-night, front-row fan, stirring up an effervescent concoction with woozy trombones, honeyed strings and full percussion trimmings.

Concerto time in this programme of music inspired by jazz came when British clarinettist Julian Bliss stepped forward to play Copland.

Moving from wistful calm to a piping hot cadenza, Bliss and a scaled-down orchestra breezed through Copland's chirpy rhythms and tricky shifts of metre.

Yet this concerto remains a well-mannered excursion on the jazz side, more influenced by French music of the 1920s than anything from Copland's native soil.

Leonard Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, in full orchestral dress-up, proved a joyous blast of raw Stateside energy.

One felt the exhilaration of the musicians, sliding effortlessly from choppy post-Stravinsky rhythms to blowsy bump and grind mode.

Julian Bliss rode the riffs with the best of them, forming a funky boogie duo with pianist Sarah Watkins.

After the interval, American bluesman Corky Siegel was the hit of the evening, spry enough at 71 to leap from the stage to serenade fans.

William Russo's Street Music, like much so-called third stream music, is curiously unsatisfying in its attempts to meld the symphonic with jazz and blues. Yet such was the gusto of Siegel, Stier and the APO that such reservations seemed pedantic.

Certainly, the pathos and poetry of Siegel's opening harmonica sighs were a tough act for dull orchestral writing to follow. The second movement, however, with Siegel dishing up the blues from the Steinway with three string players, was edge-of-the-seat stuff.

The American's spirited encore had him singing and playing his own Am I Wrong About You, ending with Stier sharing the piano stool.