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Part II: Jazz Greats and Great Jazz: An Evolutionary Riff
George Russell and his Lydian Concept
Pianist and composer George Russell (born 1923) developed his “Lydian
Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization” during the 1940s. Lydian refers to
an ancient Greek scale — an exotic-sounding variation of a standard major
scale. Russell composed pieces for musicians that often used Afro-Cuban elements
(see Chapter 9 for details about jazz with Afro-Cuban elements).
The Lydian mode was effectively used by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Ravel, and
Scriabin, but Russell was one of the first to bring this element — originally built
on simple blues or popular Broadway songs — into jazz. The Lydian mode
became the basis for spare, moody jazz compositions and improvisations.
Russell’s 1953 book on his own Lydian Concept set the stage for music by
John Coltrane, Miles Davis, pianist Bill Evans, and others in the 1960s, utilizing
only a few scales (instead of the many scales required to follow bebop’s
frantic chord changes) and allowing greater freedom for improvisation.
Russell’s fans included modernist Japanese classical composer Toru
Takemitsu, another example of the increasingly blurred boundary between
jazz and classical music (see the next section).
Hear Russell’s older compositions on ’50s/early ’60s albums such as Jazz
Workshop (Bluebird); Stratusphunk (Original Jazz Classics); The Outer View
(Original Jazz Classics); and Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature (Soul
Note) (this one’s out of print, but dig around for a copy). Today, Russell leads
and tours with his International Living Time Orchestra. To hear how his
music has evolved, get The 80th Birthday Concert (Concept).
Third stream and its classical elements
In 1957, author-composer-conductor-teacher Gunther Schuller coined the
phrase third stream for music that combined jazz and classical elements. He
said that he meant for the term to refer to a separate new genre of music not
simply jazz with classical elements or vice versa. Classical composers such
as Bartok, who combined Hungarian folk music with classical forms, had earlier
invented similar hybrids.
Third stream music combined jazz’s rhythmic drive and improvisation with
classical instrumentation and forms such as:
� Fugues: Contrasting melodies that overlap and intertwine as they’re
expressed by different musical instruments.
� Suites: Musical compositions that move through loosely related movements,
like chapters in a short novel.
� Concertos: Composed for orchestra (or jazz ensemble) and one or two
solo instruments.