DICK

E N CO RE
DOUGLAS EWART
by kurt gottschalk
Douglas Ewart was likely not the name most known
to the thousands of people at the Chicago Jazz Festival
over Labor Day, but he made one of the strongest
showings of the weekend. Besides delivering a set at
once ebullient and thought-provoking, he wore a vivid
red marching band coat with the letters “A-A-C-M”
and the numerals “5” and “0” sewn onto the back, in
what looked to be hand-cut felt.
Even among followers of the Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Ewart’s
may not be the most recognized name among members
of the seminal collective, which marked its 50th
anniversary with concerts in its two bases of operations:
Chicago, at the city’s annual jazz festival, and New
York, as a part of its seasonal concert series. But if he
hasn’t racked up an international reputation like Muhal
Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell
and some of the organization’s other acclaimed artists,
the saxophonist and instrument-builder still has long
been one of the most vocal champions of the cause. And
despite having built a career that often takes him far
from the concert stage, he continues to work with the
musicians he met when he first encountered the AACM
not long after its inception. “It’s one of the most
amazing things about staying in the flow of things, as
Roscoe says, when you build these relationships with
kindred spirits and something comes of it,” he said.
Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, Ewart grew
up interested in music even if he wasn’t yet altogether
pursuing it. “I made instruments out of tin cans,” he
remembered. But, he added, he had nothing “in terms
of having formal training or even having a drum kit,
which is what I wanted to play.”
His mother left for New York in hope of forging a
better life when he was a child. Visa problems soon had
her fleeing to Chicago, where she was able to find work
and, eventually, legal residency. She sent for her son to
join in 1963, when he was 17. At that time he was
LEST WE FORGET
GUNTHER SCHULLER
by ken waxman
During his long professional career Gunther Schuller,
who died this past June and was born Nov. 22nd, 1925,
was a French horn player, composer, conductor, author,
university professor, record company and orchestra
founder, festival administrator and conservatory
president. But for certain segments of the music world
he’s best-known for a term coined during a 1957 lecture
at Brandeis University: “Third Stream”. While his idea
of uniting the streams of jazz and classical music into a
tributary melding influences from both was initially
greeted with derision, nearly a half-century later
crossover between the two is increasingly common.
Schuller himself was an early example. Although
he was playing French horn in his teens with the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan
Opera Orchestra (until 1959), he described himself as
“a high school dropout without a single earned
degree”. An interest in jazz, sparked by exposure to
Duke Ellington’s orchestra, led eventually to
participation in Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool nonet
sessions of 1949-50. Although thoroughly embedded in
the notated side of the divide—“Of Reminiscences and
Reflections”, one of his many compositions, won the
considering a career as a tailor but he still had an
interest in music and when a classmate took him to an
early AACM concert he saw what would become his
life’s pursuit. He befriended AACM members Fred
Anderson and Joseph Jarman and at 21 had his first
formal music lesson, studying saxophone at the AACM
school on Chicago’s south side. Following the multiinstrumentalist
mold of the organization, he soon
added the flute and clarinet and, not long after that,
returned to his old practice of making instruments out
of salvaged materials. Inspiration wasn’t hard to find
for the young musician. “There was a lot going on,” he
said. “Coming from an island of relative quiet, the
music was in foment. It was a powerful time, Coltrane,
Eric Dolphy was still around. 63rd Street at that time
was a bustling street with lots of theaters and
nightclubs. Howlin’ Wolf was at a place called The
Palace every week.”
At the same time, the unrest of the era was leaving
its mark on Ewart, who lived on the same block as
Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Political
concerns continue to be a big part of Ewart’s music
today. At the Chicago Jazz Festival, Ewart’s four
singers called out the increasing number of reports of
police using violence against civilians, intoning “Shoot
him in the back, he’s black” alongside Sun Ra chants.
And this month when he plays at Roulette, Ewart said
he’ll present a piece addressing another problem
besieging America. “I want to address some aspects of
homelessness because it has become so ubiquitous
throughout the country,” he said. “When I think of all
the wealth and all the empty buildings in this country,
it’s become so desperate.
“One of the things that I’ve realized is that people
who you think are really compassionate have difficulty
giving money to people on the street,” he added.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with it and I
can’t monitor that but I can, out of compassion, give
somebody a few dollars. I think if we could see
ourselves in those circumstances, we’d live in a
different world.”
Ewart left Chicago for Minneapolis in the ‘90s,
moving with his wife who had been offered a job up
north, but his connections to the city, and to the his old
Pulitzer Prize for music in 1994—his association in the
‘50s-60s with pianist John Lewis, music director of The
Modern Jazz Quartet, helped put Third Stream ideas
into practice. When MJQ recorded with expanded
ensembles, Schuller usually conducted and, during a
memorable New York concert in 1960, Bill Evans, Eric
Dolphy, Jim Hall, Ornette Coleman and others
improvised on Schuller’s Third Stream compositions
such as “Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk”.
Along with Lewis and Harold Faberman, Schuller also
put these ideas into practice on a larger scale with
Orchestra U.S.A. from 1962-65.
Coleman had been introduced to the East Coast
after he attended the Lenox School of Jazz in
Massachusetts, which Lewis and Schuller initiated and
oversaw from 1957-60. By that point Schuller had
already taught at the Manhattan School of Music and
at Yale from 1964-67. Aaron Copland recruited him for
Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center and Schuller
became its Artistic Director from 1969-84. Schuller’s
ideas about jazz education came to fruition at the New
England Conservatory (NEC) when he became its
president from 1967-77. Not only did the venerable
institution become the first major classical conservatory
to grant jazz degrees, but he hired experienced jazz
theorists like Jaki Byard and George Russell. With Ran
Blake as its first chair, in 1972 Schuller also established
NEC’s Third Stream department, now called the
Contemporary Improvisation program.
school, have remained strong. He has taught at the Art
Institute of Chicago and has been a co-chair and
corresponding secretary of the AACM. His commitment
to the organization, which teaches self-expression and
communal support, is unwavering. “It’s an integral
part of my life,” he said plainly.
Ewart has released some stellar records, but those
have been few and far between. Much of his work
simply doesn’t fit the recorded medium. His efforts
often revolve around children and artistic expression—
for example, dribbling a basketball to teach concepts of
rhythm, counter-rhythm, soloing and composition. He
holds an enduring fascination for the creative potential
that can be found in spinning tops or medical crutches
and for building environments where people can
discover their own creative potential. His “Crepuscule”,
for example, can involve as many as 400 people in a
large, outdoor area—not just musicians but also
dancers, painters, martial artists and doll-makers. As
much a fair as it is a concert, it is orchestrated not for a
listening audience so much as passers-by who decide
to participate. Such projects may not have earned him
a place on the shelves of record collectors, but they
have been the building blocks of an unusual career.
“Playing will always be close to my heart,” he said,
“but I’m looking for other ways to engage myself and
engage the communities I visit.” v
For more information, visit douglasewart.com Ewart is at
Roulette Dec. 10th as part of Interpretations. See Calendar.
Recommended Listening:
• George Lewis/Douglas Ewart—Jila-Save! Mon.:
The Imaginary Suite (Black Saint, 1978)
• Muhal Richard Abrams—Lifea Blinec
(Arista Novus, 1978)
• George Lewis—Homage to Charles Parker
(Black Saint, 1979)
• Douglas R. Ewart & Inventions—Newbeings
(Aarawak, 2001)
• Yusef Lateef/Roscoe Mitchell/Adam Rudolph/
Douglas R. Ewart—Voice Prints (Meta, 2008)
• Douglas R. Ewart & Inventions—Velvet Fire
(Dedicated to Baba Fred Anderson) (Aarawak, 2009)
Along with his other activities Schuller founded
the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble
whose LP Joplin: The Red Back Book won a Grammy
award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 1974. In
1989 he conducted an all-star orchestral version of
Mingus’ Epitaph, later released on record; and in 1990,
after he and fellow jazz educator David Baker
organized the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks
Orchestra, he programmed, conducted and recorded
many infrequently performed jazz classics. In 1980 he
founded the GM record label, which over the years has
released discs featuring among others, his sons Ed, a
bassist, and George a drummer. If that wasn’t enough
Schuller wrote prose as well as music. Horn Technique
is a standard reference for musicians while Early Jazz:
Its Roots and Musical Development and The Swing Era:
The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 are considered
essential works. v
A Schuller tribute is at ShapeShifter Lab Dec. 12th. See Calendar.
Recommended Listening:
• John Lewis—Jazz Abstractions (Atlantic, 1960)
• Eric Dolphy—Vintage Dolphy (GM, 1962-63)
• Orchestra U.S.A.—Debut (Coolpix, 1963)
• Charles Mingus—Epitaph (Columbia, 1989)
• Joe Lovano—Rush Hour (Blue Note, 1994)
• Gunther Schuller—Journey Into Jazz (Boston Modern
Orchestra Project Sound, 1999/2002/2004)
10 DECEMBER 2015 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD