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jmcquillen@wweek.com
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Kennedy Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 7:30 pm Friday, Nov. 27. $15-$45. Nigel Kennedy, the English violin virtuoso whose punk persona has made him one of classical music's most visible figures, has recently made it a little easier for people to talk about him: He's dropped the "Nigel." Will he take the next step in pop iconography and adopt an unpronounceable cipher as his name, as Prince has done? "No," he replies, "but I thought I might pinch his symbol and change a line to see if I could get into a legal dispute with him." The most image-savvy of instrumentalists is joking, of course; he knows the publicity value of such a stunt, but he has better things to do. With his spiky, two-tone hair, his quirky retro-fop wardrobe and his rock-star antics--he once laid waste to a luxury hotel room in Berlin--Kennedy's public demeanor is an implicit challenge to the staid character of the classical music establishment. But he's really more Puck than punk; he's not out to destroy anything but the rigid attitudes that pigeonhole music and musicians. And while he maintains a defiantly unpolished image in order to deflect labels and confound critics, his primary focus is on playing music and having a good time doing it. In conversation he is not confrontational but rather disarmingly genial. He sounds more like an average English football fan than a conservatory student, and indeed he can hold forth on football or boxing as enthusiastically, thoughtfully and knowledgeably as on Elgar or Sibelius. When I asked about the name change and what he would prefer to be called, he said, "Oh, I just did that to piss off some people. Call me anything you want, man." On the violin (he plays a priceless 1735 Guarneri), he is equally accessible and extraordinarily adept. His 1987 recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the top-selling classical album ever, revealed him to be a highly energetic and sensitive interpreter, and even his most far-out touch--a strikingly modern take on the slow movement of "Autumn"--was both in keeping with the spirit of the music and beautifully played. On his recent second recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto, Kennedy has received acclaim for the lushness of his tone and the maturity of his approach. Critics have long been tempted to call him overrated, but they are increasingly coming to realize that his flamboyance is not incompatible with superb musicianship. Recognition by respected critics notwithstanding, Kennedy remains on the edge. After a five-year sabbatical owing to a combination of neck problems and career malaise, he reemerged last year with the program he's playing on the West Coast portion of his current tour. (He'll appearing at the Schnitz this weekend, courtesy of the Oregon Symphony.) Presenting interpretations of Jimi Hendrix in a concert that also includes Bach and Bartok is certain to raise eyebrows, especially when the works are mixed together, as in a compact-disc changer set to random play. Bartok's awe-inspiring (and difficult) Sonata for Solo Violin goes well with Bach (in this case, the Adagio and Fugue from the Sonata No. 3), as Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova proved on a solo recording a few years ago, but the connection to "Little Wing" and "Hey Joe" is more difficult to establish. For Kennedy, however, Hendrix represents a wide-ranging musical sensibility--a "broad premise," says the violinist--that carries a powerful sense of freedom. "You can approach his music from all different backgrounds, from rock, jazz, blues or even Celtic...He was a musician, not just a rock musician." Similarly, Kennedy tries to avoid rigid classification. "People can say I'm a classical violinist if they want to," he says, "but I've always viewed myself as a musician who plays music and not just a certain part of it." His musical education was fittingly broad. As a boy at Yehudi Menuhin's school, Kennedy began to listen to Coltrane, Coleman and Monk. He was playing with Stephane Grappelli at age 16, when he started his studies at Juilliard. Later he found the nexus of rock and jazz in the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and during his sabbatical he issued two fusion albums of his own. Kennedy doesn't go as far as to say that all kinds of music are the same to him. "The way I was brought up," he recalls, "music was about a voyage of development. Jazz and classical have a lot in common in that respect; there's development of concepts. In folk--Hungarian, for example, or Irish, which is near to my roots--the theme's played, and nothing much happens." But such a limitation in itself wouldn't keep him from performing folk or other genres. He's looking forward to going to Hungary and Romania soon and playing in back rooms and wherever else people get together with their instruments. His return to the recital stage was heralded as a comeback, but he's not playing concert halls exclusively. "Still playing club gigs?" I asked. His answer: "I'll play anywhere, man."
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