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Making ‘suite’ music — with orchestration

Lynbrook pianist Biegel part of remake of 70s Grammy-nominated jazz LP

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If you were around in the 1970s, and into cool music (who wasn’t?), then you may remember the popular “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano,” a Grammy-nominated collection of seven movements, including “Baroque and Blue,” and “Versatile.”

The suite, with its distinctive album cover by artist Roger Huyssen, was recorded in 1975 by jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling, classical flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, bassist Max Hédiguer, and drummer Marcel Sabiani. It was originally released as an album by CBS Masterworks Records and Columbia Masterworks. It nominated in 1975 for a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, and was on the Billboards top 40 chart for 530 weeks.

“I always though it needed an orchestra,” said pianist Jeffrey Biegel, of Lynbrook, of the popular piece. “In 2008, around the time I was performing Keith Emerson’s Piano Concerto, a friend of mine, Steve Barta, a jazz composer, arranger and pianist, asked me if I play jazz, and I told him yes — if it’s written out, and if it’s been recorded it before. He said he felt the same way — and that he was the man to add orchestration to “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano.”

Barta raised the funds, Biegel said, and they got permission from Bolling, who was living outside of Paris at the time. “It took a few years,” Biegel said, “and Steve called me, and said we were ready to go with Hubert Laws, the finest jazz flutist in the world, who’s now in his mid-70s. So we recorded it, not only on a CD but a vinyl, with Mike Shapiro on drums, and Mike Valerio on string bass.

Barta was able to bring in Roger Huyssen, the artist who designed the original cover, and he “tweaked it” for the new release.

“I knew we had to get this performed live,” said Biegel, “and South Shore Symphony has always been one of the most supporting orchestras, with [president] Wayne Lipton and [conductor] Scott Jackson Wiley bringing all sorts of music to the community — and now world premier of this version. (Both Jeffrey and Evan Biegel performed the original 1970s score at the Newport Music Festival in Rhode Island this July with Goran Marcusson on flute and Eliot Porter on bass.)

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