Bach and Beyond

Album Review

Jazz musicians have been taking themes (and even large-scale compositions) of Johann Sebastian Bach and giving them jazz settings for years — the Modern Jazz Quartet did so famously in the 1950s, and the Jacques Loussier Trio has set up a virtual cottage industry in that practice more recently. It would be natural to expect something similar from an album of improvisations titled Bach & Beyond. But Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero isn't a jazz pianist — she's a classical pianist who improvises, and although there are jazz-inflected moments on this collection of two- to seven-minute extemporizations, the overall sound is a decorous blend of Baroque and romantic styles with occasional passages suggesting turn-of-the-century salon music and South American dance genres as well. One of Montero's favorite techniques is to take a major-key theme and play it through before knocking it down into a dark minor-key variation, and then take that as the starting point for a long series of cyclical variations — note, for example, her treatments of an aria from the "Goldberg Variations" and of the familiar "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" melody. Her Latin roots are exposed nicely on a brief and exhilarating expansion of one of Bach's two-part inventions, while she indulges her more contemplative side on a sweet and lovely rendition of "Sheep May Safely Graze." Those who consider Bach's music a temple that must not be sullied or contaminated by mere mortals may want to steer clear, but the rest of us will find much to enjoy here.