Ravel

Ravel took jazz seriously enough to call the blues one of America’s greatest musical assets, then placed a movement called “Blues” at the centre of his Violin Sonata and brought jazz colour into the G major Piano Concerto. When Gershwin asked for lessons, Ravel reportedly declined rather than risk turning a first-rate Gershwin into a second-rate Ravel. It is a neatly reciprocal history for music that jazz players continue to reshape, from “The Lamp Is Low” to Matt Herskowitz’s spacious account of the Concerto’s Adagio.