Guitarist Dave Stryker Explores the Strong Connection Between the Cinema and the Symphony

Dave Stryker With Orchestra Arranged and Conducted by Brent Wallarab‘Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies’Strikezone RecordsGuitarist Dave Stryker’s new album, “Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies,” is so enjoyable that when I was told he was coming to Birdland, I was hoping he’d launch it by bringing in the same ensemble from the album, playing that same repertoire. This proved problematic.On the album, Mr. Stryker is accompanied by an orchestra of 32 players including a full string section, enormous by jazz standards. Nevermind the economics of paying that many musicians for a three-night, six-show run: The sheer logistics of fitting so many players on a single small bandstand wouldn’t work. You’d have to put 20 on the main stage upstairs and stick the other 12 downstairs in the Birdland theater, where they would have to follow the conductor, Brent Wallarab, mainly by a television monitor.Still, it was hardly a disappointment that Mr. Stryker instead came to Birdland with his organ trio — with keyboardist Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter — especially since he expanded the group’s palette by adding tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts. Mr. Stryker, who apprenticed as a sideman with such masters of Soul Jazz as Brother Jack McDuff and Stanley Turrentine, knows well how to work with the organ-guitar-drums format that was perfected by, among others, two pioneers of contemporary guitar, Wes Montgomery and Grant Green. His set was both funky and swinging.“You Only Live Twice,” which is the only song he played at Birdland that’s also on the album, was a particular highlight, and hearing it in two widely different contexts was revealing,In the album’s notes, Messrs. Stryker and Wallarab and the annotator, David Brent Johnson, all make the point that there has traditionally been a strong connection between the cinema and the symphony; movie music has long utilized the largest possible orchestras, to the point that even when bringing Broadway musicals to the screen, movieland maestros long made a point of greatly expand the orchestrations.‘Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies’ band photo. Via Strikezone RecordsThat’s certainly true from a 20th century perspective, but the larger truth is that movie music in the current era has been going in the opposite direction. Just compare Elmer Bernstein’s sumptuous score for the 1969 “True Grit” with the same story as scored by Carter Burwell in the 2010 Coen Brothers remake: Where Bernstein gives us a lush landscape teeming with life, Mr. Burwell lays down notes with such economy that you can practically count them; here is a desert that is barely inhabited.Messrs. Stryker and Wallarab are dwelling in the cognitive space of Hollywood’s studio-system era, except that the orchestrations, full-figured as they may be, are hardly of a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Rather, they use the most contemporary harmonic language that’s out there today. This isn’t so much Old Hollywood as Alt Hollywood.At Birdland, the organ trio made “You Only Live Twice” sound like a slow dance, a background for either terpsichore or, equally likely, a romantic encounter. On the album, it sounds like the underscore for on-screen action, and that might be the key difference. The album cover shows Mr. Stryker reclining in a cinema, his eyes on the screen, his hands not on his guitar but immersed in an extra large bucket of popcorn. Most forms of pop music or jazz are made to encourage activity — usually dancing — on the part of the listener, but movie music is about watching characters on the screen. If jazz is about emotion, film music is about narrative and storytelling. One reason “Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies” succeeds so well is because it’s keenly aware of this and doesn’t spare either. “You Only Live Twice,” from the 1967 James Bond picture, is a particularly rich cinematic tapestry not least because of the composer’s original counter-melody, an iconic theme perhaps even more closely identified with the Bond character and franchise than the official series theme credited to Monty Norman. Here, Mr. Stryker plays the central refrain while the strings wrap the counter melody around it. The album is full of other delights, especially the bluesy, trombone-driven “Flirtibird” (from “Anatomy of a Murder”), with a righteous flugelhorn solo by Mark Buselli. Kudos to the team for recognizing Duke Ellington’s oft-overlooked but vital contribution to the literature of cinema. The other Ellington work, “Low Key Lightly,” offers a stunning solo from violinist Sara Caswell. “Moonglow” is a multigenerational doubletake — a 2024 recording that looks back to a classic 1955 film (“Picnic”) that itself utilized as its theme a 1934 Tin Pan Alley song that was inspired, to an extent, by two earlier songs, one of which was, in fact, by Duke Ellington. There are crime themes (“Shaft”) and love themes (“Catavina”), and the set ends with a poignant ode to lost youth and innocence in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s waltz,“Edelweiss.” By the time we get there, we also fully realize what the concept of narrative has in common with the notion of travel: We haven’t just been moving forward in the overall story that these 11 awesome tracks tell, we also have a distinct feeling that we’ve now been somewhere — somewhere new and exciting, a place where we’ve never been to before but that seems curiously warm and familiar.Mr. Johnson also expresses the welcome notion that a follow-up to this album should be in order. My suggestion would be to put the focus on the 60-year-catalog of James Bond main title themes for “Stryker with Strings Goes the Movies: The Sequel.”In fact, an actual physical journey may be in order. Messrs. Stryker and Wallarab have announced that they will be performing this music with the full contingent of players at the Indiana University Jazz Celebration on May 3. I’m already making plans for the trip, though I haven’t decided whether to travel by space ship, nuclear submarine, or to simply drive there in my Aston Martin DB5. What the heck, you only live twice.

Guitarist Dave Stryker Explores the Strong Connection Between the Cinema and the Symphony

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