Brooklyn music lovers are in for a special treat just in time for Valentine’s Day.
For the first time ever, Brooklyn’s premier professional orchestra, the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, is dedicating a full program to jazz, featuring the work of the late Charlie Parker, “Charlie Parker with Strings,” on Feb. 13 at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights. It is also the first time in more than a decade that “Charlie Parker with Strings” will be heard live in New York.
The one-night-only performance, featuring acclaimed alto and soprano saxophonist Vincent Herring, brings classical and jazz music into conversation by paying homage to one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time and a key figure in reshaping American music in the 20th century.
“Charlie Parker with Strings” highlights Parker’s love for classical music. By bridging the gap between jazz and classical traditions, Parker intended to reach a wider audience — though at the time, jazz purists accused him of “selling out.”
The groundbreaking compilation album, released in 1955, became the most commercially successful chapter of Parker’s career and has long been considered a turning point in jazz history. Blending Parker’s improvisatory brilliance with lush string arrangements, the sessions revealed another dimension of his artistry — deeply melodic, expressive and expansive — while bridging bebop’s radical language with a broader musical audience and affirming Parker’s vision of jazz as an elastic art form capable of existing alongside classical traditions.
Even 70 years after Parker’s untimely death at 34, the father of bebop’s work continues to feel daring, lyrical and emotionally expansive. Selections are drawn from the Great American Songbook — music Parker transformed through the Strings sessions — including “Summertime,” “April in Paris,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and “I’m in the Mood for Love.” Presented in their original string arrangements, the works spotlight the lyrical beauty, harmonic daring and emotional range that defined Parker’s playing, even within the lush sweep of an orchestral setting. Presented as a complete work, the performance also includes music from the original score that was never recorded, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the full scope of Parker’s landmark string project live in concert.
Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director and conductor Phil Nuzzo said that “Charlie Parker didn’t just push jazz forward, he redefined what was possible,” describing Parker as the cornerstone of jazz.
“Charlie Parker set a point of departure for the rest of Jazz from him, going forward. He just changed the genre. His conceptualization of it is different from people’s previous to him,” Nuzzo told Brooklyn Paper.
After a series of sold-out concerts, Nuzzo said he wanted to “bend” the orchestra’s repertoire.
“I said, ‘Okay, we’re pretty secure with an audience here. Let’s try and bend it a little bit,’” Nuzzo said. “So we have the union of symphonic strings with a jazz combo, which is very unique, and not done that often, but these are iconic arrangements. They are clearly not done that often; the last time it was done was a decade ago.”
Nuzzo said he was excited to collaborate with Vincent Herring, whom he described as the “present-day GOAT.”
“[Herring] brings a special stature to it. Yeah, we can have somebody else play it, but to have somebody play like Vince is, you know, off the charts for us,” Nuzzo said. “There are people who are musicians, and then there are people with music in their soul; it just pours out. And he’s like, a vessel for this stuff. Just pours all this music out. You can just feel it when he’s playing. It doesn’t seem technical, it doesn’t seem pedantic; it just flows out of the guy.”
Herring, who has performed and recorded with jazz greats including Nat Adderley, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Cedar Walton and the Mingus Big Band, is known for his intense, soulful sound and commanding swing.
He told Brooklyn Paper that Parker was a source of inspiration and a blueprint for how he learned to improvise while playing jazz.
“I teach in a few different conservatories and all over the world, and in every conservatory music school, they studied Charlie Parker as one of the leaders in jazz, and one of the reasons why is because of his innovative thinking,” Herring noted. “His creative imagination is something that can’t be easily duplicated. His technical skills are not exceptional, but the thing that separates him from all of us is his imagination.”
Herring also said the notion that Parker “sold out” with “Charlie Parker with Strings” was “blown out of proportion,” describing the album as the “most refined, beautiful works that [Parker] did.”
“In fact, he said it himself that that was his favorite thing that he did. It was not only a sense of accomplishment, but also being able to play and perform with the orchestra was a big deal to him, and I don’t think it was selling out,” Herring said. “In fact, I think it stands the test of time, because it’s a beautiful body of work in his solos and the interpretation of the melodies. They’re classics for a reason.”
Tickets for the tribute to the jazz icon start at $55 and are available through Eventbrite. For a lineup of the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra’s upcoming concerts — including “Buried and Born in Brooklyn,” celebrating the borough’s musical heritage with a program devoted to composers born in Brooklyn — visit the orchestra’s website.
