Colin Jacobson – An Xperience Interview

Colin Jacobson – An Xperience Interview – by Neoptolemus.

“Pictures at an Exhibition” (a 1971 live album from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer). “A Fifth of Beethoven” (a 1976 disco instrumental). “Sabre Dance” (a 1968 Dave Edmunds/Love Sculpture electric guitar arrangement).

These are all 1960s-1970s popular song titles based on classical works.

But there’s more. Modern rock bands have sampled various pieces of classical works in their songs. Probably most notable is the guitar arpeggio in the middle of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star.” That’s directly quoted from Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major.” And there’s Metallica’s “Damage, Inc.,” with an intro based on Bach’s “Komm, Susser Tod” (“Come, Sweet Death”).

And there’s lots more.

The genre of heavy metal is founded on a movement from Gustav Mahler’s “The Planets” suite. Geezer Butler reports in his memoir, “Into the Void,” that he became fascinated with Mahler’s “Mars, the Bringer of War.” During band practice, he played the tritone from that movement on his bass. Guitarist Tony Iommi picked up on it and started playing it. That was the basis of “Black Sabbath,” the song that launched heavy metal. Ironically, no one in the band then knew that the tritone was nicknamed “The Devil’s Interval.”

So all of you out there who think you don’t like classical music, think again. You just didn’t KNOW you liked it.

Classical music is a fertile source of inspiration and mining for some of today’s biggest bands and musicians. And that is why everyone — young people, especially — should support classical music.

This is precisely the reason you should experience the Knights, who will be performing at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on Saturday, February 7; doors at 7:30 PM. True, the program is classical, but to quote an old Alka Seltzer commercial, “Try it; you’ll like it.”

Colin Jacobsen, one of the founders of the Knights, agreed to sit down for an interview with Xperience Monthly.

RRX: Thank you for your willingness to be interviewed. First, can you describe the Knights? What was the origin of The Knights, and how many members are there currently? How does one become a Knight?

CJ: To extend your rock/pop metaphors here, the Knights is perhaps a classical equivalent of a garage band, in that it sprang up organically out of chamber music reading parties (classical jam sessions where you play music extemporaneously, sight-reading it for fun) in our living room in the early aughts. It started out as a string orchestra of about 17 musicians and expanded to include winds, brass, and percussion a few years later. There are around 40 member musicians now, forming a chamber orchestra-sized group that can expand or shrink, accordion-like, according to the repertory on a particular project. Musicians can be eligible for membership after playing at least five projects with us (for which they are recommended by current personnel or our personnel manager). Usually, it’s after several years of playing with us that one can potentially become a member. Our goal is to keep that feeling of intimacy and immediacy we experienced in the living room in small group formations and bring that energy to the concert hall.

RRX: The Knights aren’t your typical chamber orchestra. The group’s performances are highly eclectic; you have even performed a 2009 Kyle Sanna orchestral arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s song, “Machine Gun” (featuring Jan Vogler on cello). It seems the Knights’ mission is to traverse/amalgamate musical genres in order to connect modern audiences to classical repertoire.

CJ: The Knights’ repertory is reflective of my brother Eric, myself, and other member musicians’ curiosity for and expertise in a number of musical genres. While the majority of us come from classical conservatory backgrounds (Juilliard, Curtis, etc.), some of us specialize in period instrument/early music on one end and in contemporary classical on the other. There are also singer-songwriters in an indie-pop/folk vein, arrangers and composers, jazz musicians, and members who engage in cross-cultural music making. And yes, when we do something like make Paul Simon’s “American Tune” the second movement of Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3,” with Knights member Christina Courtin playing violin and singing, it’s based both on a desire to connect to a larger musical world and reflect the back and forth that has always existed between popular or folk music and longer form composition through the centuries. (Simon’s tune is based on a choral from Bach’s “St Matthew’s Passion,” which is itself based on an older hymnal tune …)

RRX: What is the process for the selection of compositions to be performed by the Knights?

CJ: My brother Eric and I are always bandying about ideas. Sometimes they are based around a particular collaboration or guest artist, and that can lead our thoughts in a certain direction. Member musicians often come with ideas which we try to incorporate, and now we have a member musician programming point person (the aforementioned Christina Courtin) who funnels membership ideas as well as coming up with her own. We have a long-term project going around the idea of “Rhapsody,” born out of a desire to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue.” We commissioned around nine new works that all brought together two or more musical worlds, as Gershwin did.

RRX: You have mentioned elsewhere that you (and the Knights) would be interested in a collaboration with Jon Batiste, who recently released a “Beethoven Blues” album (Verve Records, 2024). Are there any plans for a Knights/Batiste future collaboration?

CJ: Not yet, but sometimes by putting an idea out into the universe, it comes to fruition years later …

RRX: Improvisation, also known as free-soloing, is a mainstay of most rock music, the solos typically performed by a guitarist or keyboardist. Probably the most iconic rock solo is the “Stairway to Heaven” intro by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. Classical music also had its era of improvisation, when composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart performed their music. But then, for an extended period, classical music became fixed, with only one way to perform a piece. Indeed, during that era, it was blasphemous for soloists to improvise. That seems to be changing, with modern composers like DBR (Daniel Bernard Roumain) not only soloing, but even including improvisational sections in their written music. What are your thoughts about improvisation, and what do you think the future holds regarding its use in modern classical compositions?

CJ: A few thoughts here. I think music that truly touches us is based on a mixture of structure and freedom. I think the parallel for long-form, composed/written-down music is in the theater world. Actors work with scripts, whether for the stage or the screen, and when it’s good, it has a freedom, an organic quality, and something that rings “true” in its delivery. Classical musicians mostly work in a similar way, where timing and a sense of narrative delivery can make a performance feel either alive or stunted. Improvisation or highly structured music both have value, and in the en,d it’s about whether it’s done well.

I will say that classical music, mirroring much of Western society (medicine, law, etc.), became increasingly specialized over the past few centuries, such that composers and performers were increasingly separate people. But when they are the same, there’s an ecosystem of creativity and experimentation that is good, and I feel like the classical world is returning to a more holistic place where there are more performer/composer people who are likely to have improvisation as some part of their creative practice.

RRX: Do you have any guilty pleasures, such as listening to pop/rock/blues/jazz music? Do you have any favorite modern artists or songs?

CJ: There’s no guilt in listening to great music across any genre. Some favorite recent artists: I’m With Her, Kayhan Kalhor, Chris Thile, Martin Hayes, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Toumani Diabate, Magos Herrera.

RRX: Is there any message you would like to leave our readers with?

CJ: In a time when we are distracted by so much in the world, great live music can give us a focused experience in community, unlike anything else. Give the Knights a try on February 7th in the beautiful acoustics of Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

 

 

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