Jazz orchestra puts contemporary ‘Nutcracker Remix’ on stage, CD

“Sometimes, it can’t just be about the money,” said Doug Lillibridge, board president of the Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the CCJO.

That is a noble sentiment. But it’s also a tough one to live up to when you’re trying to keep the books balanced in a precarious economy. That wasn’t enough to keep Lillibridge and the CCJO from releasing a new album, “The Nutcracker Remix.”

You can understand if someone might be skeptical about the project. Who makes CDs anymore? And does anyone really need another recording of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker?”

“This one, I promise you, is different,” Lillibridge said. 

The concept for the composition surfaced a decade or so ago when Rob Parton – then the artistic director of the CCJO – floated the idea of creating a new jazz version of “Nutcracker.”

It was a cheeky suggestion. After all, jazz giants Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington had already created their own jazz version of the work in 1960 when they recorded “The Nutcracker Suite.” In the years that followed, it became a well-known and well-established piece of the big band repertoire.

But jazz has evolved enormously in the half-century since Strayhorn and Ellington created their work. Despite its lush and often inventive arrangements, “The Nutcracker Suite” can sound a little dated to the modern ear.

“No matter how you feel about Ellington’s version, the fact that he and Billy Strayhorn already had their own version of ‘Nutcracker’ made this project all the more intimidating,” said CCJO artistic director Eric Lechliter, who arranged six of the nine sections that comprise “The Nutcracker Remix.” CCJO trombonist Dominic Marino arranged three others. “There’s nothing we could add to the original source material – Tchaikovsky – or the classic Ellington-Strayhorn work, so we had to approach this thinking, ‘How can we add to the legacy?’ ”

New flavors add spice to a classic 

The solution: “There’s a little bit of everything in it; Brazilian, hip-hop, R&B, swing, New Orleans jazz – it’s all in there,” Lechliter said. “We just took ‘The Nutcracker’ around the world and explored some different territory with it.”

As a result, Tchaikovsky’s “March of the Toy Soldiers” became “The Pistachio March,” while the Chinese dance morphed into “General Tso’s Gumbo” and “Waltz of the Flowers” turned into “Everybody Digs Flowers.”

On top of that, the holiday suite includes three cuts sung by veteran jazz vocalist Mandy Gaines, who has collaborated so often with CCJO that she is considered an honorary member.

When CCJO finally premiered the entire work in December 2016, Lillibridge said, he was floored by the result.

“When it was over, I looked at a couple of board members and said, ‘This is it. We have to do this.’ ” Lillibridge had heard excerpts of the work prior to that premiere performance. “But when I heard the whole thing, I was completely sold on the idea. We had to record it.” He and his fellow board members immediately set about raising upwards of $20,000 to bring the recording to fruition.

But why a CD? Why not just offer a streaming version of the recording? Industry sources estimate that streaming accounts for more than 84 percent of music purchases.

Some expenses remain the same no matter which distribution route you take. Whether you’re streaming or creating a CD or even vinyl, you still have to pay musicians. And recording engineers. And marketing.

“But with a CD, you have the added costs of pressing, additional artwork, printing of the liner notes and credits,” said Lillibridge. “And then you have to pay someone to assemble all those materials and distribute them. Is it possible that we’ll make money on this? Yes, it’s possible. But it’s likely to take many years.”

Something physical for posterity

As Lillibridge said, decisions like this aren’t always about turning a profit. Some of the decision to create a CD was spurred by marketing considerations. When people leave a live performance, their enthusiasm for the music is as strong as it is ever likely to be. That’s why so many performances peddle merchandise in the lobby after shows, whether they be Broadway productions, ballets or even symphony orchestras.

“But sometimes, it’s about wanting to create something physical for posterity’s sake,” Lillibridge said. “Computer files sit on hard drives and can be forgotten. A CD can live on a shelf or coffee table forever.”

That’s especially true with holiday-related music. CCJO has a pair of “Jingle Jazz” performances scheduled for the Redmoor on Dec. 10-11. “The Nutcracker Remix” will be played in its entirety at both shows. And you can bet there will be a stack of CDs available for purchase as you leave the theater.

Equally important, though much harder to measure, is the role CDs play in marketing a music organization.

“Cincinnati is a relatively small market,” said Lechliter, artistic director since 2019. “We here in Cincinnati know what a gem it is. But the rest of the world, not so much. One of the longer-range goals of CCJO is to blow the lid off that image. The word ‘contemporary’ is part of our name for a reason. We commission a lot of new music. We’re trying to expand the repertoire.”

Recording, he said, is a big part of that. An audio file arriving unannounced in an email inbox doesn’t garner as much attention as a well-designed CD landing in the morning mail.

“I have sold charts to people as far away as Brazil and the Netherlands,” Lechliter said. “And having physical recordings – CDs – has had everything to do with that.”

Music historians tell us that jazz stopped being America’s popular music sometime around 1945. A few big bands survived. Think Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis and various iterations of the Ellington Orchestra. But increasingly, musical taste and the economics of popular music leaned toward four-piece bands with a couple of guitars, a drummer and a bass.

“But today, there is a resurgence of interest in big bands,” said Lechliter. “There is a revival of artistry and adventure in jazz music. We’re not inventing a new genre, but I think we’re participating in a flowering of expression through the medium of big bands. And I think that big bands have a unique ability to proselytize. When you have all of those people in front of you – 12 horns and great singers – it blows the hair off the back of your head. There is nothing like it.”

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