Saxophonist/composer Ted Nash is at the piano. He has been commissioned by Wynton Marsalis to compose a major work for the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra, which Nash had been a member of since the late 1990's. He is about to begin the process.

"I stood at the piano and threw my hands on the keyboard like throwing paint on a canvas," says Nash, who then sings some of the strange little phrases the technique yielded. He had the beginnings of the seventh section of "Portrait In Seven Shades," a suite that the JALC Orchestra will perform at the Auditorium Theatre Monday at the sixth annual Jazz For The Park Benefit.

Nash was attempting to translate the painting style of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock into music. "Like drips and splashes - I just captured a bunch of these phrases and linked them together and organized it, just like Pollock, I think, was very organized." Pollock is one of seven artists Nash explores in his suite.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Nash's world was filled with music. His father, Dick Nash, was a trombonist and his uncle (and name-sake) Ted Nash, a saxophonist. Both of his grandfathers were gifted musicians, as were one of his grandmothers and his mother.

L.A., with its film and recording industries, was a hothouse for music. His father and uncle played on the soundtracks of more than 500 films, including all of Henry Mancini's scores. They played on albums featuring Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others, some orchestrated by Nelson Riddle. Sinatra declared Nash's uncle Ted his favorite saxophone player.

"You see people doing what they love to do, coming home and feeling good about their lives" says Nash, "so naturally you get a sense that this is a great way to have a lifestyle. Once I got immersed in it I never looked back. I always thought I was going to be a musician."

Nash was something of a prot�g�, starting on piano at the age of 7. He picked up the clarinet at 12 and alto sax at 13. At 16 he played with Lionel Hampton, at 17 he was lead alto in Quincy Jones' band, and at 18 he released his first album.

"I built up a lot of confidence, maybe a little bit out of balance. I moved to New York at 18. ‘Here I am, ladies and gentlemen!' They said, ‘That's great. See that line that goes around the block? Get in the back of it. We'll see you in a few years.'"

Nash had been to New York before. When he was 10 his family traveled to the city and, like a lot of visitors to Manhattan, they took in the art museums.

"I remember walking up that long circular ramp at the Guggenheim," says Nash, "and I remember seeing a Chagall with the violinist upside-down over the rooftops, playing. There was such fantasy in it. That made an impression on me."

After moving to New York he revisited the museums and frequented SoHo and 57th Street galleries. "I got familiar with modern art; I really was attracted a lot to abstract art."

When Nash first joined the JALC Orchestra, the ensemble was playing a lot of Duke Ellington and pieces by Marsalis. But as Marsalis discovered the arranging and composing talents of the group's members, he began to commission works. When he asked Nash to write a suite there was one stipulation: there had to be a theme. Nash chose to write the piece around modern art.

"It was an opportunity to not only write something at the top of my game, but to embrace different styles. What could be a more natural inspiration for that but different painters?" he says.

The Museum of Modern Art gave him carte blanche, letting him in before the museum opened, and after-hours admittance. He went whenever he could, narrowing down his choices. Museum staff also gave him a coffee table book on the collection. He printed out reproductions of paintings and hung them around his piano.

There have been many attempts at portraying visual imagery in music: Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," Steven Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George." And, along with the movement in art, there was the Impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel. But Nash didn't want to use anyone else's methods.

"I let each movement dictate what I wrote. I was aware of the parallels. I wanted the music to feel like paintings. That's hard to do, because we're dealing with a completely different palette. They have colors, we have notes. But we talk about color and shapes and textures and layers and all of these things. No wonder; it's really the same process. One note, one phrase, that's really a brushstroke.

"You get up close to Monet and it's abstract," Nash says. "You don't see the picture. You could look at a score for the trombone section and analyze the bass part but you're not going to see or hear the whole thing until you step back and see or hear the whole thing at once."

Nash felt like he had succeeded in conjuring art when New York Times critic Nate Chinen entered a rehearsal in the middle of a piece. "I said, ‘Hey, Nate what painter is that?' He said Monet and he was right. It's really my own painting of water lilies. I wanted it to be airy and reflective, light and colorful."

Nash had a different way of dealing with each artist. To re-imagine Dali's iconic image, dripping clocks, "I created an odd time signature and had a solo part where the notes are bent."

For "La Danse" by his favorite artist, Matisse, he used Thelonious Monk-like rhythmic quirkiness. When it came to Picasso's paintings he emphasized the cube. "I based everything on four in terms of harmony; there are four chords and lots of angles and layers," he says.

For Chagall, Nash invited members of his own group, Odeon, to fill out the orchestra and help create the sound of Klezmer music. The life and work of van Gogh inspired Nash to write a song with trombonist Vincent Gardner singing Nash's lyrics.

Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Monday, March 22

Auditorium Theatre, 885 E Main St.

8 p.m. | $35-$75 | 263-7938, jazzforthepark.org