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The really big band sound
Conductor Keith Lockhart relies on his musicians' versatility to get the nearly 90 players of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra to swing like a 20-piece band.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001
Keith Lockhart thinks the music of Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Harry James and countless other bandleaders should be thought of as America's classical popular music.
"What makes something classic is not that it was written by somebody in a powdered wig, but that it's something that stands the test of reinterpretation for subsequent generations, that outlives the people it was written for," said Lockhart.
Lockhart is conductor of the Boston Pops, whose Esplanade Orchestra brings its tour of big band music to the Ice Palace on Sunday. The program also includes the English swing dance troupe the Jivin' Lindy Hoppers and singer Kelly Eisenhour.
With nearly 90 players in the orchestra, it can be a trick to get them to swing in music originally written for bands of 15 or 20 players.
"Obviously we're the world's biggest big band," Lockhart said, "but a lot of this music has been part of the Pops repertoire since the late 1940s, and it has been arranged by people who actually were with those big bands, people like Billy May and Don Sebesky. Also we have a rhythm section that's not what the ordinary orchestral rhythm section would be."
In addition, classically trained musicians aren't as inflexible as they used to be.
"The musicians we get into the orchestra today are more versatile," he said. "As a result, we've been able to add back in some of the solo breaks that were in the originals and really give it back to the players."
Lockhart, speaking from Salt Lake City, where he is music director of the Utah Symphony, said the Pops plays as many sports arenas as it does concert halls these days.
"A lot of the tours, because of the economic imperatives attached to them, are now in large venues," he said. "Our holiday tour is in NBA venues, places that run 15,000 seats. Of course we'd rather play in Carnegie Hall, but, with a good sound system, which we bring with us, we can do a pretty good thing."
Now in his seventh season as Pops conductor, Lockhart had a couple of tough acts to follow in Arthur Fiedler, a Boston institution for almost half a century, and Hollywood composer John Williams.
"I would say that my approach is probably closer to Fiedler's just because I didn't come from the Hollywood studios; I came from the classical orchestra side of the street," he said.
Fiedler basically followed the model of a variety show, with programs centered around light classical music but also including plenty of pop arrangements. Lockhart does much the same, at least on the Pops' home turf.
"In the concerts we do in Boston, which are not necessarily as strictly themed as the ones on the road, we do things like the finale of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra or Firebird," he said. "The funny thing is, in the relaxed atmosphere that the Pops situation provides, people seem inclined to listen to almost anything."
PREVIEW
The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra plays at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Ice Palace. Tickets: $15-$100. (813) 287-8844.
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