 Fast Company
A ballet by Stuart Sebastian, set to music by Erroll Garner
That Erroll Garner played with great rhythmic impact is a given. His "beat" was always danceable, even on his ballads, with their special "feel" - sometimes kind of a slow funk. His uptempo and medium attacks were a Joy, and kept the feet patting - the heart racing. As pianist-arranger-conductor Sy Johnson salo of one of Garner's performances -- "Anyone who doesn't move to that is catatonic." FAST COMPANY was Garner's first music for dance; he had hoped to create more works for the dance theater, but his untimely death in 1977 cut him off from developing this facet of his creativity. However, we are fortunate to have a ballet choreographed to his recordings of his compostions, done in 1981 by a brilliant young cheographer, Stuart Sebastian, then director of the Dayton Ballet Company, which debuted the work.
Titled FAST COMPANY after one of Garner's compositions, the ballet was performed several times by the Dayton Ballet Company and the Princeton Ballet Company, touring and including a performance for Queen Noor of Jordan, at the historic amphitheater in the 1988 Jeresh Festival in Jeresh.
FAST COMPANY will be performed in the spring of 2001, by the Classical Ballet Theater in Hemdon, Virginia. For details call Cynthia Rudorfer at 703-689-O383.
For Further information about the availability of FAST COMPANY and other ballets by Stuart Sebastian, please contact Jean Galan, 773-274-9893.
PROGRAM NOTES
FAST COMPANY encompasses nine compositions by Erroll Garner written over a period of some two decades, ranging from the title selection in 1944, to NERVOUS WALTZ (1967), with the renowned ballad hit, MISTY, composed in 1954.
In making choices for this dance amalgam of Garner works, choreographer Stuart Sebastian spent several months listening and re-listening to more than fifteen hours of public and private Garner recordings. Sebastian had great difficulty in eliminating many of the works he was hearing, and zeroing in on the ones he finally picked. "They (Garner's compositions) are so pure.., so classic," notes Sebastian. "I gravitated to them as soon as I heard them. The steps were all there in the music. I just had to set them."
This is the first major dance exposure of the Garner works and illustrates how a choreographer and a composer of different generations and different bock-grounds are able to join their artistry to create a new dance work.
Internationally acclaimed pianist-composer Erroll Garner left an abundant legacy of recordings and compositions upon his untimely death in 1977. He had many plans for composing for dance; he always wanted to write a ballet. Thus, we are fortunate to have Stuart Sebastian's visualization of Garner's works, a true synthesis of dance and music, all combined with the actual Garner recordings of these works for this premiere of FAST COMPANY.
Erroll Garner was a master in themes and variations improvisations being spontaneous, yet resolved. Like Garner, Sebastian's work is highly spontaneous. He never knows what he is going to do until the music starts and then the steps and movements come. As a result, Garner's sense of surprise, discovery, invention and freedom comes alive in Sebastian's interpretations.
NOTES ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL MUSIC SELECTIONS
PLAY, PIANO, PLAY, won the Grand Prix du Disque in France for Garner in 1949, and was buried in a time capsule in 1957, at the Comedie Francaise in Paris, with Garner present at the ceremonies.
MISTY, which has been termed "the ultimate Jove song" by Stuart Sebastian, is Garner's best-known composition. It has been recorded by several hundred artists, and is the title song of a Clint Eastwood film, PLAY MISTY FOR ME. The original rendition by Garner is the version which will be heard during the ballet.
Of the same ballad genre as MISTY, and composed during the 1954-56 period are DREAMY and NO MORE SHADOWS.
PASSING THROUGH and JUST BLUES (performed on harpsichord), both up-tempo selections, were recorded by Garner in the mid-50's.
ERROLL'S A GARNER is of the 40's, and like FAST COMPANY, reflects the mood of that time. In the aptly named NERVOUS WALTZ, Sebastian has picked up the contrasting moods set by Garner in this "mischievous" piece.
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 Stuart Sebastian, the choreographer, passed away in 1991. Many of his works are still in performance by the Dayton Ballet Compamy, and FAST COMPANY stands as one of his most unique works.
It is to be hoped that more of Garner's originals will find their way into the dance theater reptertoire. In 1985, master tap dancer amd choreographer, Maurice Hines, created a dance work to Garner's PASSING THROUGH, THAT'S MY KICK, and MISTY, which he performed in numerous venues to great effect through the years, as a tribute to Garner. There are
eight dancers in FAST COMPANY.
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