Masterminds Then and Now

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Now into its second century, jazz has quite a checkered history behind it, filled with so  many outstanding achievements by so many musicians of great stature, notwithstanding the legions of worthy contributors to the cause.

With the death of Wayne Shorter recently, an indisputable legend of the music if every there is/was one, it gives us a moment to pause and assess not only his stellar career but those of two other brilliant minds, one whose centenary of his birth falls this year, the other now the object of a recently released box set of previously unissued recordings

Exhibit A: George Russell

As a composer and arranger, George Russell’s contribution to jazz was significant albeit under-recognized, his works not being performed that much since his death in 2009 at age 86. But his legacy is far more important elsewhere, as the first— if not only— jazz theorist to have formulated a novel musical construct for Western music, one that even questioned the validity of its most basic tenet: the major scale.

First published on his own dime in 1953, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization was a manual produced on a shoestring budget that would become the cornerstone of Russell’s life work, both as composer and educator, the latter at the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Cambridge, Mass. In this, the centenary year of his birth, there could be no better time to take stock of this man’s impact on the music. For some basics on the theory, we invite readers to access the companion article to this piece here.

Born out of wedlock from interracial parents he never knew, Russell was an infant when a couple in Cincinnati named Russell adopted him. He was exposed to music early in life, the mother a non-professional choir singer, the father a piano doodler who sang for his own pleasure. As a teen, George picked up the drums, smitten by jazz. By 15, he dropped out of school, aiming to become a professional musician. Working conditions, however, would take a toll, leading him to a severe bout of tuberculosis and requiring him spend time in a sanatorium. He worked at a piano in that facility, churning out his first big-band charts that he shopped around and sold following his discharge. Then it was off to the Big Apple where he soon hooked up with the movers and shakers of the modern jazz intelligentsia, one of them Miles Davis.

In a conversation, the trumpeter expressed a wish to play over all possible chords changes and a light went on for Russell. But TB caught up with him again, forcing yet another institutional confinement. Making use of the downtime, he began working on his scheme, a process that would lead him to his book. Put in a nutshell: Russell’s theory identified a problem with the major scale (or Ionian mode) and decided to discard it in favour of another scale (the Lydian mode) from which he derived a series of altered scales that could incorporate all 12 chromatic tones. His goal was to generate more harmonic and melodic possibilities for musicians to improvise on over the chord changes that Miles wanted to master.

Slowly, the theory was making the rounds in the jazz world (and it may well be that Miles’s hit album Kind of Blue would never have come to be without Russell’s ground-breaking concept, but we can only speculate here). Conversely, in the classical world, no one ever noticed, due in part to the book’s poor circulation. Ask even a high-brow composer about it now, and at best you might get an answer of having vaguely heard about it.

Russell’s music was steadily gaining attention, at least in the jazz world, and recording opportunities were coming his way. The early 1960s would be the turning point when he led a sextet comprised largely of his private students, with him at the piano. By mid-decade he was off to Europe where his ideas were being even more readily accepted, especially in Norway, where he settled for four years. In 1969, he headed back to the States to take up a teaching post offered to him by the NEC and remained there until his retirement in 2004.

From then on it was all composing for Russell, the nexus of his art now fully invested in orchestral music performed by his own band, the Living Time Orchestra, a 20-some piece lineup staffed by different personnels for his European and American engagements. Last but not least, he impressed his ideas on generations of musicians, two of them from our own local scene.

Janis Steprans: on stage with George

A full-time teacher at Laval University in Quebec City since 2004, Janis Steprans was one of the few lucky ones of Russell’s students to on one of his records, The African Game, issued in 1984 on the famed Blue Note imprint.

I do remember George telling that Miles story in class,” Steprans recalls.“One of the most creative aspects of the Lydian concept for me is the way of creating different harmonic colours over a given harmony. Another important lesson to draw is to be able to justify the selection of a whole range of chromatic notes over any chord. When you analyze solos of all the greats, they hold up to that test.

I was lucky enough to play baritone sax for a retrospective concert of his music in 1983. In late summer, I was on board again for five full days of rehearsals that led to that Blue Note recording, this time playing second alto. Though I had no solos, being part of this recording was a great experience, like the concert.”

François Bourassa: an afternoon at home with George

While he never had the same kind of luck Steprans had, pianist François Bourassa spent an afternoon with Russell at home one fall day of 1986, early on in his master’s program at the NEC.

I knew only a little about him beforehand,” says Bourassa, “but I found him rather intimidating at first. I decided to check out his music, and his records were real eye- and ear-openers. He sort of took a liking to me, and called on me to play some of his exercises in the classroom. Then he asked me to come by his place, and told me to play his upright while he would record me on his cassette deck. I might still have that lying around somewhere.

Looking back now, I cannot say I became one of his disciples or followers, but some things have seeped into my own music at a deeper level. The closest I came was one piece I did for a trio record of my early days, the cut is called Numéro 6, and is based on one of his exercises.”

Note: On June 1, Bourassa will launch his 12th album, again on the Effendi label. Entitled SWIRL – Live @ piccolo, it captures his quartet in action before a select studio audience.

George Russell

In words: Stratusphunk The Life and Works of George Russell, by Duncan Heining; Jazz Internationale (Self-published) 2020; ISBN 979869779261-2 (available through Amazon).

In sounds: Ezzthetics & The Stratus Seekers Revisited —Ezz-thetics, 2022 (two early 1960s sextet albums repackaged).

Exhibit B: Lennie Tristano

Like all jazz greats, pianist Lennie Tristano was exceptional in his own way, his reputation being that of the music’s first fully dedicated teacher. But he worked outside of academe, dispensing his knowledge instead from his own home, one student at a time. Blind early in life, he was not the most outgoing of individuals, clutching on to someone’s arm on his outings. His biographer, Eunmi Shim, reveals that his lessons would rarely last more than a half an hour, less if his pupil had mastered assigned work from the previous lesson. The practical aspect of the training would occur at night in clubs, the most congenial setting for him to display his keyboard prowess.

On stage, his career lasted no more than 25 years, the final decade of his life focused uniquely on teaching until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1978, age 59. On record, his last official outing was the magnificent solo album The New Tristano on Atlantic in 1961. Yet, more material would surface thereafter, culled from his own archives—some in live settings, others taped at his home studio

Bolstering the pianist’s sporadic output are six hours of previously unreleased material owned by his daughter Carol, issued late last year by Mosaic Records. Known to insiders for its box-set anthologies of historical recordings, the label has unearthed a treasure trove of music in this six-CD set housed in an LP-size box containing a 16-page large-sized booklet, generously illustrated, and annotated by Lenny Popkin, a tenor saxophonist and one of the master’s most unwaveringly faithful disciples. The set covers the span of his musical career, from 1946 live quintet recordings to a home solo studio session in 1970. Accustomed as we have been for decades with clear and resonant recordings, listening to music captured on nothing more than a metal wire is as taxing as you can get. All the more when a good third of the 74 tracks (or two full discs plus) were captured that way. While much is said in the notes about the almost miraculous salvaging of those sonic artifacts, it may well be that only the most hardened aficionados of the pianist will stick it out. Yet, there is plenty to revel in, such as the whole second disc of solo takes, taped in the 1950s; likewise for the duo and trio outings of the next decade, a good number of them simply killing for the pianist’s unrelenting drive. Also of note are the following finds, one being a 1948 quartet session of free group improvising with Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh and Billy Bauer, predating the famous two tracks Intuition and Digression by a year, and the box-set finale where Zoot Sims on tenor joins Konitz and the Tristano trio for a fine romp on the standard How Deep is the Ocean. One more criticism of this set, however, would be Popkin’s gushing liner notes that reveal more about his slavish devotion to his mentor than about the music. He could have, for instance, identified the jazz standards on which many of Tristano’s improvisations are based, all obvious to Popkin for sure, but not so much, if at all, to those less acquainted with the music.

Lennie Tristano Personal Recordings 1946-1970 / Mosaic Dot Time MD6-272 (Limited run of 5,000 sets)

www.mosaicrecords.com (Scroll down page for audio clips here.)

Exhibit C: Wayne Shorter (R.I.P.)

News broke recently of the sad passing on March 2 of world heavyweight saxophonist Wayne Shorter, six months shy of his 90th birthday. Few, if any, would question this journeyman’s standing in jazz over the course of a six-decade career, reaching a pinnacle of sorts as a member of Miles Davis’s trend-setting quintet of the 1960s. On his way there, he first gigged in Maynard Ferguson’s band before Art Blakey hired him in 1960 as musical director of that famed edition of the Jazz Messengers—the one sporting trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and trombonist Curtis Fuller. On his own, Shorter was turning out his albums on Blue Note in that era, penning many a composition embraced in the jazzlore (Footprints, Infant Eyes,Speak No Evil, and more). Next came his 15-year association with Weather Report, his jazz fusion venture with keyboardist Joe Zawinul, then personal projects and a long-awaited return to his acoustic roots early in the new century, leading a cast of stellar sidemen, pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattitucci and drummer Brian Blade.

On both tenor and soprano, he asserted an original voice, both conceptually and instrumentally—his sound with a bite of its own, distinct from Coltrane’s, the overriding influence of the time; his playing at turns laconic and effusive, strewn with unpredictable turns of phrase. In his twilight years, his contribution was assured by his brilliant compositional mind that hatched works for chamber ensembles, as well as his ambitious final opus, the jazz opera Iphegenia, co-composed with librettist and bassist Esperanza Spalding. When speaking of jazz composers, there’s the old saw that Ellington, Mingus and Monk were its Bach, Beethoven and Mozart (a dubious comparison to say the least); a better analogy would be that of the three musketeers, now joined into eternity with Shorter as its D’Artagnan!

Listening hints

Speak no Evil, Blue Note, 1966

Stockholm 1967 & 1969 Live Revisited (with Miles Davis), Ezz-thetics 2021

This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en: Francais (French)

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About Author

Marc Chénard is a Montreal-based multilingual music journalist specialized in jazz and improvised music. In a career now spanning some 30 years, he has published a wide array of articles and essays, mainly in Canada, some in the United States and several in Europe (France, Belgium, Germany and Austria). He has travelled extensively to cover major festivals in cities as varied as Vancouver and Chicago, Paris and Berlin, Vienna and Copenhagen. He has been the jazz editor and a special features writer for La Scena Musicale since 2002; currently, he also contributes to Point of Departure, an American online journal devoted to creative musics. / / Marc Chénard est un journaliste multilingue de métier de Montréal spécialisé en jazz et en musiques improvisées. En plus de 30 ans de carrière, ses reportages, critiques et essais ont été publiés principalement au Canada, parfois aux États-Unis mais également dans plusieurs pays européens (France, Belgique, Allemagne, Autriche). De plus, il a été invité à couvrir plusieurs festivals étrangers de renom, tant en Amérique (Vancouver, Chicago) que Outre-Atlantique (Paris, Berlin, Vienne et Copenhangue). Depuis 2012, il agit comme rédacteur atitré de la section jazz de La Scena Musicale; en 2013, il entame une collabortion auprès de la publication américaine Point of Departure, celle-ci dédiée aux musiques créatives de notre temps.

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