Treasured by music lovers from coast to coast, violinist Kristin Lee recently released her first “curated” concept album, American Sketches (First Hand Records). In doing so, she took just enough time away from her usual work as a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and as founding artistic director of Seattle’s frequently less formal but no less dedicated Emerald City Music to collaborate with two fine artists, pianist and arranger Jeremy Ajani Jordan and, on Amy Beach’s Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 (1893), pianist Jun Cho. The results are delicious.
For hopeless romantics, the two high points of the recital will be the most traditional selections: Beach’s Romance and Kevin Puts’s “Air” (previously called “Aria”) from Four Airs, composed 107 years after Beach’s piece. The former elicits Lee’s richest and most gorgeous tones, its high ending executed so beautifully as to make Fritz Kreisler proud. That final note may not be flawless, but it’s real — as in unedited — which to my ears makes it even more endearing. Puts’s even shorter, deeply touching work begins with gorgeous, mesmerizing repetition before branching out. It’s a major find that will likely find a place in your heart.
At the other end of the spectrum lies the opening work, John Novacek’s Four Rags (originally, Four Rags for Two Jons [1999]). Lee sets expectations for the entire album by opening with the ridiculously fast, technically challenging “Intoxication” and ending, just as the title says, “Full Stride Ahead.” In between, she delightfully and charmingly rags and strolls.
Curiously, Novacek’s “4th Street Drag” and “Cockles” seem more familiar than Jordan’s unusual take on Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” (1902). Jordan’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s “But Not for Me” (1930) is also decidedly different from the original performance by Ginger Rogers and the Grammy-winning follow-up by Ella Fitzgerald (in 1959). In arranging the final track, however — Thelonious Monk’s Monk’s Mood, Lee’s favorite track on the recital — Jordan takes cues from Monk and saxophonist John Coltrane’s 1957 recording on Live From Carnegie Hall.
The wildest piece on the program is saxophonist and composer Jonathan Ragonese’s recent non-poem 4 (2017) in an arrangement for violin and piano. The longest composition is Henry Thacker Burleigh’s four-movement Southland Sketches (1916). Burleigh’s pioneering work arranging Black spirituals shows through in this familiarly American-sounding piece. It’s lovely and endearing music, beautifully played.
Given the program’s 53-minute length, Lee certainly had room to expand the recital with another work. Some listeners may long for something meatier. Beach’s music, for example, inevitably summons up thoughts of Brahms, but he was hardly American. Instead, Lee could have chosen music by that veritable cart upsetter Charles Ives. Music by a more recent American maverick, Lou Harrison — his Grand Duo comes to mind — would have been another fine addition. But as a delightful feel-good album that sounds excellent in high-resolution file format, American Sketches is a keeper.