Over the last decade, Lalo Schifrin has re-entered the jazz scene primarily through a series of lavishly appointed Third Stream albums called “Jazz Meets the Symphony.” He’s not the first to try, of course; such attempts date back nearly a century. But the prolific 70-year-old composer-pianist-arranger has been working this lode more diligently and successfully than most, getting the unwieldy components of symphony orchestra, jazz combo and star soloists to fit together while maintaining his own distinctive sonic signature.
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The Cerritos Center turned out to be a terrific staging ground for Schifrin’s mergers and the granddaddy of Third Stream pieces, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” on Sunday afternoon (the first of two performances that day). The large pickup orchestra — thankfully unamplified — sounded clear, detailed, resonant and well-balanced with the miked rhythm section in this hall. Schifrin, who in the past has led such groups from the piano, chose to conduct from the podium most of the time, leaving the piano in the very capable, flashy hands of David Benoit and classical pianist Robert Thies.
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While Schifrin has been accused of hiding behind chameleonic masks, his “Jazz Meets the Symphony” pieces are in fact loaded with his personal trademarks — massive flavored layers of orchestral weight, tattoos of mallet instruments, passages of quiet tension that recall his television and film work. The ear-stretcher here was “Miraculous Monk,” an imaginary meeting between Thelonious Monk and Bela Bartok whose mutual fondness for spiky discords gave them a few things to talk about.
The performance of the Gershwin was not one for the memory books — draggy, heavy-set, full of fussy rubatos and curiously devoid of jazz feeling. Yet Schifrin own symphonic-jazz contraptions very often lifted off the ground, thanks in great part to powerfully swinging grooves propelled by drummer Jeff Hamilton.
In “Dizzy Gillespie Fireworks” and “Rhapsody for Bix,” the spotlight belonged to the boppish trumpet/flugelhorn pyrotechnics of frequent Schifrin recording partner James Morrison. As if to acknowledge that there wasn’t enough for Morrison to do, Schifrin found time for two encores — “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” where the Australian daredevil crisply dueted with himself on trumpet and trombone, and the most lucrative eight notes in Schifrin’s file, the “Mission: Impossible” theme.