Portraits in Jazz by Howard Reich

Author:Howard Reich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agate Publishing
Published: 2014-08-10T02:34:00+00:00

Overcoming illness, Ramsey Lewis writes epic for Lincoln — and Obama

June 7, 2009

As Ramsey Lewis’ fingers stroke the keys of a Steinway grand, a great swell of orchestral sound rises up around him.

Nearly two dozen musicians have gathered to rehearse for the world premiere of the most ambitious piece of Lewis’ career, an evening-length homage to the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial titled “Proclamation of Hope.” But just a few months ago, Lewis didn’t know if he would be healthy enough to finish writing the work, let alone play the piano for its unveiling Friday night at Ravinia in Highland Park.

Lewis, 74, had spent several months last year battling a disorder of his pancreas, “the longest I’ve ever been away from a piano since I was 4 years old,” he recalls after the rehearsal in Ravinia’s Martin Theatre. “I just didn’t know how it was going to be at the piano afterward. Maybe I was afraid.”

During the treatment and recovery that silenced him from September to November, “there was a part of me that was missing,” adds Lewis, a lifelong Chicagoan. “There was a part of me that was not being fulfilled.”

So when he was strong enough to return to the piano and resume work on “Proclamation of Hope,” last December, Lewis poured his frustrations and anxieties — as well as a lifetime of musical experiences — into it. The result is a vast, eight-movement work that not only addresses Lincoln’s legacy but pushes beyond it.

For in the midst of Lewis’ illness and recuperation, America elected its first African-American president, altering not only the nation’s history but, on a more personal level, the progress of Lewis’ opus. And what Lewis originally intended as a celebration of black music in America (and Lincoln’s role in igniting it) eventually blossomed into an exploration of the links between presidents Lincoln and Obama.

In effect, Lewis during the past year unexpectedly found himself at the intersection of three powerful currents: his attempt to compose an epic work, his battle for his health and his awe at the ascent of an African-American (and fellow Chicagoan) to the White House. These three themes inspired “Proclamation of Hope,” says Lewis, and changed his understanding of his life and his art.

That Lewis even was undertaking such a Herculean composition would have seemed improbable just a few years earlier, for the classically trained pianist had spent his career performing and recording succinct jazz tunes. With the possible exception of “A Gospel Celebration,” which Lewis led at the Ravinia Festival in 1996, Lewis rarely had worked on a large canvas.

But Ravinia president Welz Kauffman pointed Lewis in that direction, when Kauffman commissioned the pianist to compose a solo piano work in 2006. Lewis, the longtime artistic director of jazz at Ravinia, pleased Kauffman immensely with “Clouds in Reverie,” inspiring Kauffman to ask for a more extended piece: Lewis’ original score for a Joffrey Ballet world premiere, “To Know Her. . . .” That gorgeously lyrical piece — in which Lewis’ trio accompanied Joffrey

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