REVIEW: FRANÇOIS RABBATH/ARIZONA BASS PLAYERS FESTIVAL
posted by James Reel
The American String Teachers Association urges its members to teach not only the usual classical approach, but also “alternative styles,” meaning everything that isn’t classical music. The word “alternative” suggests that classical music is still the foundation of everything (as well it should be, from the standpoint of technique), and that jazz and bluegrass and Latin and gypsy genres are extra options to be selected from an educational menu. Well, it’s difficult to think of any kinds of music being “alternative” or “optional” when they are all melded so expertly in the work of François Rabbath, a superb Lebanese-born French bassist and composer. Rabbath performed last night (Oct. 7) at the University of Arizona’s Crowder Hall as part of the Arizona Bass Players Festival.
Rabbath played several of his own compact, evocative pieces, as well as items by Antonio Vivaldi, Frank Proto and George Gershwin. Even jet-lagged and 74 years old, Rabbath is a bassist to reckon with; he gives himself plenty of challenges of technique and expression, but makes them all look and sound like the easiest thing in the world. It appeared that he was caressing and tickling the fingerboard rather than working to get the notes.
The self-taught Rabbath grew up playing jazz in a Beirut restaurant; in his 20s he moved to France, worked as a sideman for such singers as Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel, eventually played in the Paris Opera Orchestra and recorded all sorts of music. His own compositions ignore musical frontiers; they often contain Middle Eastern melodic elements, a jazzy sense of rhythm, and methods of structure and expression that would meet with the approval of any classical partisan.
Just consider his first piece, the item with which he usually opens recitals, Poucha-Dass. It’s a raga inspired by contact with the Indian musician Ravi Shankar, and Rabbath somehow drew from his bass the buzz of a sitar. The extraordinarily beautiful Reitba, inspired by a rose-colored lake near Dakar, began with a rocking rhythmic figure suggesting gentle waves; this was soon overlaid with a keening Middle Eastern melody, all rising to an ecstatic central climax. In a little piece called Chasse à Cours, Rabbath’s bass perfectly imitated the nasal vibrato of French hunting horns. And in a composition whose title Rabbath translated as The E in the Bull’s Eye, not just the low E but every note was right on target in a piece that seemed to blend the muezzin’s call from the minaret with the rumbling drone of a didgeridoo.
Rabbath was equally adept with other people’s music. He showed off his superb intonation in a Vivaldi Adagio, finding passion within nobility, and similarly brought warmth and ardor to a movement from one of Bach’s cello suites. And he showed off all his skills in Frank Proto’s Nine Variants on Paganini, which began like a French cabaret song, turned to jazzier ruminations, and culminated in a cadenza that was essentially Paganini’s devilish 24th caprice for solo violin.
Pianist June Chow-Tyne certainly held her own in the Proto work, but was not seriously challenged in any of the other pieces; she always gave Rabbath the sensitively balanced support he needed.
Rabbath will pop up again in further performances involving John Clayton, Brian Bromberg and Kristin Korb as the Arizona Bass Players Festival continues through Oct. 9.
