Some jazz artists have no qualms conjuring the image of Johann Sebastian Bach manning the keyboards in a jazz combo.

And in that role he would likely prove a shockingly good improviser.

Or so believes standout jazz pianist Joe Gilman, who has been thinking a lot about Bach lately.

The reason? Gilman and his Joe Gilman Jazz Ensemble are slated to perform at the second annual Bravo Bach festival at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Sacramento.

On March 25, Gilman will perform several interpretations of Bach's works. The six-concert festival, from Friday through March 27, seeks to honor the music of Bach and the influence his music had on other composers.

The festival will present performances by several noted local musicians, including soprano Robin Fisher, singing Bach's Cantata No. 51, and pianist Tien Hsieh performing transcriptions by Liszt and Busoni of Bach Organ works.

"When Bach was playing the organ in a church or in a tavern, he was improvising," Gilman said.

And improvisation will be the point of Gilman's performance March 25. Although his set list is not yet written in stone, Gilman is certain he and guitarist Steve Homan and bassist Matt Robinson will be riffing off the foundations that Bach set in his Minuet in G, the Fugue No. 2 in C minor from "The Well-Tempered Clavier," and the Two-Part Invention in D minor.

The appearance of Gilman on the festival slate is a first, said Jack Miller, the festival director and St. Mark's United Methodist Church choir director and organist.

"Bach's harmonic language pushed the limits, and this is often exactly what jazz musicians do," Miller said. "His musical art was the culmination of the Baroque era, and the great composers after him knew his music well."

The overlap of baroque and jazz is no new development. Jazz artists have been mining Bach's music for decades, most notably Bill Evans and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

It is a musical street that runs two ways. It is well known that jazz has bled colorfully and elegantly into the compositional style of Debussy and Stravinsky.

The inclusion of Gilman in the Bach festival may be a testament to the universality of Bach's music, but it is more a sign that this fledgling festival does not want to be musically insular in its programming.

"We want to broaden the focus of the festival as much as we can," said Miller.

As a classical organist, Miller got turned on to Bach's jazz stylings by listening to the recordings of Jacques Loussier. Next season Miller hopes to bring the London-based Swingle Singers to the festival. That eight-member ensemble, with many iterations over the past 30 years, sings mostly a capella.

Contemporary classical musicians and jazz musicians are drawn to Bach because his music encourages each performer to inhabit the work – through improvisation.

It's an old idea that became new again in the early 20th century.

That aspect of Bach's music is incredibly appealing to Gilman, who became enmeshed in Bach as a piano performance major at Indiana University. At the time, he was also pursuing a degree in jazz studies.

The two worlds rarely overlapped, he said.

"I knew Bach was a great improviser," Gilman said. "But there was no bleed-over. For me, the classical world and the jazz world were relatively distinct from each other."

As a young musician, Gilman did not realize how much Bach's music would be appreciated, or much less understood, from an improvisational standpoint.

"That only started to happen organically playing with other musicians," said Gilman, a longstanding member of vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson's ensemble.

One portal into the classical world was his experience working on the 2004 recording "The Claude Bolling Suites for Flute & Jazz Piano Trio," with flutist Laurel Zucker. That work was hailed as a stellar example of how traditional classical music can be combined with jazz. The result was a unique and fetching synthesis of both genres.

"That experience started showing me how this music could be improvised," he said. And it has been an organic musical thought for Gilman ever since.

"When I'm playing in Hutcherson's band, we don't necessarily talk about Bach, but everyone realizes that all that stuff is hiding deep down in there."

It's there, in the sheet music, but not in the way a classical musician would expect. The reading is done between the lines.

The sheet music Gilman is primarily working from is actually a fake book, or lead sheet version of the Bach pieces. This gives Gilman and his ensemble the bare bones – a perfect foundation for improvising.

In some cases Gilman will tackle one of Bach's fugal passages and will perform improvised music where a standard classical passage would have been heard.

However, Gilman's performance will not be devoted entirely to Bach. "I'm going to find pieces in the repertoire that are closely related to the kind of harmonies and melodic information that Bach would have written."

These are likely to include the classic tune Joseph Kosma's "Autumn Leaves" as well as John Lewis' "Django." These and other jazz works will be performed in a classical style, Gilman said.

Works by Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel and Antonio Vivaldi will also be performed.

BACH FEST

"CABARET BACH"

THE JOE GILMAN JAZZ ENSEMBLE

WHEN: 7 p.m. March 25

WHERE: St. Mark's United Methodist Church, 2391 St. Marks Way, Sacramento

TICKETS: $12 general; $15 at the door; $8 student

INFORMATION: (916) 483-7848; www.stmarksumc.com

OTHER PERFORMANCES

All performances at 7 p.m.

"A BACH SAMPLER"

THE FESTIVAL CHAMBER PLAYERS,

w/soprano Donna Helmich-Agnello and others

WHEN: Friday

"ORGAN MASTERWORKS"

ROBERT HUW MORGAN, organ

WHEN: Saturday

"BACH & THE SPIRIT OF IMPROVISATION"

CAMERATA CAPISTRANO

WHEN: Sunday

"THE ROMANTIC CONNECTION"

TIEN HSIEH, piano

WHEN: March 26

"SING FOR JOY!"

THE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, with Robin Fisher, soprano; Scott Macomber, trumpet

WHEN: March 27

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