Anders Koppel with Benjamin Koppel/Scott Colley/Brian Blade - Mulberry Street Symphony (Cowbell/Unit)

Cultural cross-pollination is one of the most important sources of creativity, energy and purpose in art – indeed, in all of humanity in general. Immigration is key to that process, so it’s no surprise when artists use their own talents to explore those ideas. Danish composer Anders Koppel taps into the immigrant story with Mulberry Street Symphony, an impressive work performed by his son, alto saxophonist Benjamin Koppel, accompanied by bassist Scott Colley, drummer Brian Blade and the Odense Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates. Koppel based the pieces on a series of late nineteenth century photographs by Danish-American reporter and reformer Jacob Riis, who brought attention to the conditions of New York tenements in his book How the Other Half Lives. Like Riis himself, many of his subjects were immigrants, and he sought to capture not only their plight, but their resilience and dignity.

Deftly using the cultural synergy inherent in his wide range of experience, from playing his composer father Herman D. Koppel’s clarinet works to being a member of Danish rockers Savage Rose and worldbeat folk-jazz trio Bazaar to writing hundreds of film scores, ballets, theater pieces and classical scores, Koppel – the grandson of Polish immigrants – uses Riis’ work as a springboard for his own interpretations of the immigrant experience. Working, as the composer himself puts it, “where the border between notation and improvising disappears,” Koppel fashions accessible melodies and expansive arrangements that bring to mind the transitional tunes in musicals, the sounds behind the dialog and action between vocal numbers. Benjamin soars over these settings with his nimble alto, improvising on the tunes of “Stranded in a Strange City,” “Blind Man” and “The Last Mulberry” with impressive skill, but never straying far from his father’s strategic intentions. Veteran sidepeople Colley and Blade, who’ve counted star bandleaders like Wayne Shorter, Nels Cline and Bill Frisell among their client,, hang back, accenting the rhythms but never calling attention to themselves.

Unsurprisingly, composer and ensemble are at their best during the longest pieces. The lush but vibrant “Tommy the Shoeshine Boy” and the swinging “Bandits’ Roost” allow the elder Koppel to develop his themes at a leisurely pace, giving the younger Koppel plenty of space in which to express both himself and his father’s musical thrust. Anders graciously cedes the final word to his son, playing Hammond organ on Benjamin’s playful “Puerto Rican Rumble” as an encore – a passing of the torch from one generation to another, even as the older generation hasn’t slowed down. After all, family tradition is part of the immigrant experience as well, and it’s well-captured in Koppel’s themes for Mulberry Street Symphony.