Sommerfest's rhapsody of blues, jazz

Being a multi-tasker can be a big advantage if you're running a music festival, as Andrew Litton has demonstrated time and again, conducting and playing the piano -- sometimes simultaneously -- during the seven years he has presided over the Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest. Such versatility expands the possible repertoire, and it's cheaper. No piano soloists have to be hired, or at least not so many.

Litton served in both roles in the concerts on Thursday and Friday at Orchestra Hall, and did so with distinction, also acting as host, a task that many conductors find daunting but that Litton performs with ease and wit, as if he were making music for friends gathered in his home.

Some of the repertoire was familiar. Gershwin's "American in Paris" served as the curtain-raiser Thursday night, and the same composer's "Rhapsody in Blue" was played right before intermission on Friday.

A native New Yorker, Litton seems to have Gershwin's music in his veins. It may be recalled that he played a couple of Gershwin songs at the news conference some years ago announcing his appointment as artistic director of Sommerfest. Gershwin, in other words, was his calling card. Whether conducting or playing, Litton gets the rhythms right, and he emphasizes the "blue" notes in these pieces (the flatted third and fifth) And he never races the music, which is somewhat the vogue now in Gershwin. He got just the right tempo for the trumpet tune at the end of "American in Paris" -- slower than most conductors take it -- and he played the "Rhapsody" freely and with real panache, though not always with the utmost clarity. Clarinetist Burt Hara and trumpeter Manny Laureano brought energy and character to their solos.

Thursday's program was devoted to jazz, and the first half of the evening sparkled. Among the gems were Maurice Peress' vivid and hard-swinging orchestration of Duke Ellington's landmark "Black, Brown and Beige," during which R. Douglas Wright's funky trombone solo was one of many highlights. Then came Litton's finest moment: a virtuosic reading of a transcription of an Oscar Peterson solo on "Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk that took the breath away.

On the other hand, the evening's biggest opus, taking up the second half, the premiere of trumpeter Irvin Mayfield's "The Art of Passion" for orchestra and jazz soloists, turned out to be a disappointment. The orchestra part is underwritten -- it serves mostly as pale accompaniment. Mayfield, the orchestra's artistic director for jazz, has lots of ideas, but hasn't figured out a way to integrate orchestra and improvising soloists, at least not to the extent that Ellington did. The solo playing, though, was coherent and exciting, during which Mayfield was joined by trombonist Ronald Westray, bassist Neal Caine, drummer Adonis Rose and the exceptionally fine pianist John Chin.

Also on Friday's abundant menu, Litton played and conducted Gerald Finzi's graceful, Bach-inspired Eclogue for Piano and Strings. And in a stirring finale, the conductor, the orchestra and organist Dean Billmayer delivered Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, the "Organ Symphony," emphasizing the work's often-ignored poetic eloquence rather than its rhetorical bombast.

Michael Anthony is a Minneapolis writer.