Anyone attempting to talk about the
Jazz Sonata on a deeply analytical level isn’t playing with a full deck. Aside from pointing out that it shares a good deal of its material with the very entertaining
Jazz Symphony written around the same time, it would be useless to dissect this little ninety-second piece. Suffice it to say that this amusing and intriguing bit of musical nonsense is at least remarkable for being one of the first examples (if not the first) of outright musical collage. There’s no logic whatsoever in the way it’s assembled. It works—somehow.
from notes by Marc-André Hamelin © 2008
