George Russell (musician)
George Allan Russell (born June 23, 1923 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † July 27, 2009 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American jazz musician, composer and music theorist.
Live and act
Russell, whose father was a music professor at Oberlin College, received his training as a drummer a. a. at Wilberforce University . In 1941 he composed his first work, New World , for Benny Carter and became a member of his band. After being drafted into World War II, he developed tuberculosis, which is why he spent a long time in hospitals. Because of his illness he also had to end his career as a drummer - he later turned to playing the piano. In the hospital he began to deal intensively with music theory. He later went to New York City , where he studied composition with Stefan Wolpe and met musicians such as Miles Davis , Gerry Mulligan , Max Roach , Johnny Carisi and Charlie Parker . He was commissioned to compose a piece for Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra. The result was Cubano Be / Cubano Bop , a piece in which he fused Afro-Cuban music with jazz music. It was performed at Carnegie Hall in 1947 and made him famous. In 1949 Buddy DeFranco recorded Russell's play Bird in Igor's Yard , in which he combined influences from Charlie Parker with those of Igor Stravinsky .
In 1953 Russell's music theory work Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization was published , which made a significant contribution to the emergence of modal jazz and prepared important jazz records such as Kind of Blue ( Miles Davis , 1959) or A Love Supreme ( John Coltrane , 1965). He took the mid-1950s with a sextet, the next Russell and Bill Evans , and (also Miles Davis influenced over the Russell theories) Art Farmer belonged, The Jazz Workshop , his first album as a leader on. For the Brandeis Jazz Festival he wrote All about Rosie , New York, New York based on a poem by Jon Hendricks ; it has been performed by New York jazz greats like Bill Evans, Max Roach , John Coltrane, Milt Hinton , Bob Brookmeyer and Art Farmer. In the early 1960s his album Ezz-Thetic was created with Eric Dolphy , Don Ellis and Steve Swallow . In 1961 he rearranged All About Rosie for the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band .
In 1964 Russell went to Europe. He stayed longer in Norway and Sweden , where he worked for the Swedish radio under Bosse Broberg and u. a. performed with the young musicians Jan Garbarek , Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen . He also played with the Americans Don Cherry , Cameron Brown , and Al Heath , who lived in Europe . In 1969 he returned to the USA at the invitation of Gunther Schuller to set up a jazz department at the New England Conservatory of Music .
He has also performed with his fourteen-musician orchestra in the USA and Europe. The 1985 album The African Game received two Grammy nominations. At the invitation of the Contemporary Music Network of the British Council , he went on tour in 1986, which resulted in The International Living Time Orchestra , with which Russell has since worked. The orchestra includes keyboardists Brad Hatfield and Steve Lodder , guitarist Mike Walker , bassist Bill Urmson , drummers Billy Ward and Pat Hollenbeck , trumpeters Stanton Davis , Tiger Okoshi and Stuart Brooks , saxophonists Andy Sheppard and Chris Biscoe , the clarinetist Pete Hurt and trombonists Dave Bargeron and Richard Henry .
Since the late 1980s he has composed a number of larger compositions such as Uncommon Ground (included on the CD The London Concert ), An American Trilogy and the three-hour symphony Time Line for orchestra, jazz band, choir, rock musician and dancer.
Russell died of complications from his Alzheimer's disease.
Prizes and awards
Russell was recognized as a NEA Jazz Master in 1990; he received the British Jazz Award and the French Oscar du Disque du Jazz . In 1989 he received a MacArthur Fellowship .
Works
Discography (selection)
- 1956: Jazz Workshop
- 1959: New York, NY
- 1960: Jazz in the Space Age
- 1960: Stratusphunk
- 1961: Ezz-thetics
- 1962: The Stratus Seekers
- 1962: The Outer View (with Sheila Jordan )
- 1965: At Beethoven Hall (with Don Cherry)
- 1970: Trip To Prillarguri
- 1972: Living Time (with Bill Evans)
- 1973: Listen to the Silence
- 1976: Vertical Form VI
- 1978: New York Big Band
- 1980: Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature
- 1981: Othello Ballet Suite (1967) / Electronic Organ Sonata No 1 (1968)
- 1982: Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature - 1968
- 1982: Live in an American Time Spiral
- 1983: The African Game
- 1986: So What
- 1989: The London Concert
- 1996: It's About Time
Book publication
- George Russell: The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization 1953, 2001, ISBN 0-9703739-0-2 .
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
- Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 2: M – Z (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16513). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16513-9 .
Web links
- George Russell's homepage
- Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization
- Works by and about George Russell in the catalog of the German National Library
- Obituary by John Fordham in The Guardian
- Obituary (English) in the Washington Post
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Russell, George |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Russell, George Allan (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician, composer, and music theorist |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 23, 1923 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Cincinnati , Ohio , USA |
DATE OF DEATH | July 27, 2009 |
Place of death | Boston , Massachusetts , USA |