Trotter Review Volume 2 Article 5 Issue 2 Trotter Institute Review

6-21-1988 George Alan Russell: 's First Theorist Robert E. Moore University of Massachusetts Boston

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Recommended Citation Moore, Robert E. (1988) "George Alan Russell: Jazz's First Theorist," Trotter Review: Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 5. Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review/vol2/iss2/5

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the William Monroe Trotter Institute at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Trotter Review by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. George Alan Russell Jazz's First Theorist

by Robert E. Moore

In 1953 George Alan Russell published The George Russell. Certainly Russell has distinguished Lydian Chromatic Concept Tonal Organization. of himself over the years as one of the pre-eminent By virtue of this work Russell carved out a unique composers in jazz. Yet Russell is to be distinguished niche for himself in the history of jazz, his opus rep- from the others on Schuller's list because of his theo- resenting the first theoretical work to come out of retical interests, having produced the first original, the jazz tradition. The purpose of this paper is to de- theoretical work to emerge out of the jazz tradition. fine his place in jazz history and to offer a biograph- Through his theoretical work he has exerted an im- ical sketch off jazz's first and most important theo- pact on jazz that goes far beyond his impact as a rist. My points of departure will be references made composer. Notwithstanding his compositional to Russell in two widely read works— Gunther work, Russell has, since the formulation of the Lyd- Schuller's Early Jazz and Wilfrid Mellers' Music in a ian concept, defined theory as his major interest. New Found Land. Both works stand in need of criti- Although Russell's name is mentioned in most of cal commentary. the larger historical studies of modern jazz, only re- in Early Jazz asserts what many cently has he received recognition for some of the take as axiomatic— that jazz, as contrasted with more direct ways in which he has influenced the evo- "classical" music, is a player's or improviser's art. lution of jazz. Recent biographical studies of trum-

It is manifest that the basic stylistic and con- peter Miles Davis have revealed that it was Russell ceptual advances in jazz have been determined who showed Davis how to compose and improvise by its great instrumentalist-improvisers — Louis what became labeled as "modal jazz." While the im- Armstrong, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, proviser-performer Davis is often credited with hav- Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, ing initiated one of the major developments in the Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman— jazz of the 1960s through his work on such composi- not by Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Theo- tions as "Milestones" and "So What," it was Russell, lonious Monk, , George Russell, utilizing the principles of his Lydian theory, who and Charlie Mingus. 1 showed Davis how to do modal music. One of the Davis biographers, Nisenson, in describing how the While the composer may exert an indirect influence trumpeter composed his landmark composition on the improviser, a more direct influence is pre- "Milestones," notes the following: cluded by the virtual impossibility of an instrumen- talist emulating a compositional conception that is The simple melody was an experiment inspired in itself based on the collective efforts of a number by an evening Miles had spent with the jazz of players. Although Schuller notes a "quasi-com- composer-arranger George Russell, who at the positional conception" undergirding the styles of time was working on his theoretical "Lydian the great improvisers, it is the instrument and the Concept of Tonality." Basically, this was a performance that he considers of primary impor- method for the jazz composer and improviser tance. 2 to use modes rather than the traditional tonal That the improviser has played the major role in chord progressions and tonally responsive melo- the evolution of jazz is not a proposition that this dies. Modes are actually a very old concept in writer would attempt to refute. I do, however, feel western music, dating back to ancient Greece, compelled to raise a question about the adequacy of and modal concepts were used, in different in- Schuller's categories, especially as they apply to one carnations, in the primitive music of Africa figure mentioned in that select group of composers, and in the art music of India. Miles was fasci-

15 nated by Russell's approach. Here was a means significance of his work was its attempt to apply an of breaking free from tonal cliches —while main- Ockham's razor to music theory, to generate a de- taining some amount of restraint. "George," scriptive theory that offers the instrumentalist- Miles told Russell that night, "if Bird were composer the full range of options and possibilities 3 alive, this would kill him." lying within the universe of equal temperament. In the introduction of his book, Russell asserts the fol- Davis has also cited pianist as one who lowing: exerted a great influence on him during his modal period; Evans was in the Davis band during the The Lydian Chromatic Concept is an organiza- 4 modal period. Evans was recommended to Davis by tion of tonal resources from which the jazz Russell, and it would be reasonable to propose that musician may draw to create his improvised Russell's influence on Davis continued through lines. It is like an artist's palette: the paints and Evans who had studied the Lydian concept. colors, in the form of scales and/or intervalic While Davis's interpretation of Russell's concept motives, waiting to be blended by the impro- marks one instance in which a composer-theorist viser. Like the artist, the jazz musician must has exerted an influence beyond that countenanced learn the techniques of blending his materials. by Schuller, it was Davis who provided Russell with The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Orga- the initial stimulus to delve into theoretical con- nization is a chromatic concept providing the cerns. It was a remark made by Miles in the mid- musician with an awareness of the full spec- 19408, that he wanted to learn all the changes, that trum of tonal colors available in the equal tem- sparked in Russell the desire to learn all the scales. perament tuning. There are no rules, no "do's Russell saw this project as one complementary to or don'ts." It is, therefore, not a system, but Davis, given the fact that one of the main tasks of rather a view or philosophy of tonality in the jazz improviser is to convert chord symbols into which the student, it is hoped, will find his own scales, creating melodic lines that convey the sound identity. 5 of the chord. Russell immersed himself in his chosen task dur- ing a long period of confinement for tuberculosis in . . . Russell carved out a unique a New York hospital in 1945 and 1946. There he niche in spent most of his hours at the piano in the sitting for himself the history of room matching chords to scales, enduring the com- jazz, his opus representing the first plaints of fellow patients who tired quickly of his in- theoretical work to come out of the cessant piano playing. It was during this time that jazz tradition. Russell hit upon the idea that the Lydian scale (e.g., C D E F# G A B) conveyed the sound of a major chord (C E G) better than the traditional major scale (C D E F G A B). The experimentation with the Lyd- From the basic principle formulated during his hos- ian scale was, he notes, inspired by the practice of pital confinement, Russell had moved on to devise a Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, et al, of utilizing the scale that offered the full range of tonal colors, flatted fifth of major chords. These musicians were which could be used in shaping melodic lines as well the creators of the so-called "BeBop" music. as harmonies. Out of the material provided by the Out of the hospital in 1947, Russell composed one Lydian chromatic scale, his book demonstrates how of the first Afro-Cuban jazz numbers, "Cubano Be, one can derive all of the major categories of chords Cubano Bop," for the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, and scales. The upshot of this chromatic view is that employing one of the techniques derived from the all chords and scales built on each of the twelve developing Lydian theory. His introduction was chromatic tones are related, the connecting link be- based on a single Lydian chromatic scale, departing ing described by the circle of fifths. from the traditional practice in which chords pro- One of the practical ramifications of Russell's vide the foundational elements. While Russell con- view is mentioned by trumpeter Art Farmer, who tinued his activity as a composer-arranger in the late studied the concept in the mid-50s. Farmer asserts 40s, the call of his theoretical muse led to his with- that studying with Russell engendered the view that drawing from the music world in the early 50s. He there are no wrong notes, that one might justify the took a day job at Macy's and devoted his free hours use of any note within the parameters of tonality. to the completion of his concept of tonality. Farmer also makes note of a demonstration by In 1953 Russell published The Lydian Chromatic Dizzy Gillespie that antedated his studying with Concept of Tonal Organization, the first theoretical Russell. Gillespie, he relates, played a variety of tri- work to be written by a jazz musician. His opus was ads in a chromatic fashion over a single pedal point. not offered as a prescriptive text, i.e., one that at- "All of them," according to Farmer, "sounded 6 tempted to legislate a particular taste or style. The bright." What Russell accomplished, as Farmer im-

16 " plies, is the development of a systtem that formally David Baker represents one whose work spans both explains Gillespie's point about chromaticism. the jazz and European classical and symphonic tra- ditions. Baker, who studied with Russell at Lenox, is the author of a widely used series of textbooks on improvisation, and his approach is based on the Lydian concept. 7 Recent biographical studies of During Russell's extended stay in Scandanavia in trumpeter Miles Davis have revealed the late 1960s he had a marked impact on both jazz that it was Russell who showed Davis and non-jazz European musicians. Among the latter how to compose and improvise what was the leading Norwegian "art" music composer Kora Kolberg. Russell, Kolberg asserts, exerted a became labeled as "modal jazz. profound influence on the younger Norwegian com- posers who, like himself, were looking for an alter- native to the elitist, atonal approach of the avant- garde. What they found in the Lydian concept was "a Russell describes his theory as being in part a new way of looking at tonality which was not bound codification of the techniques and intuitive princi- by the timeworn, traditional major-minor ap- ples that have been developed by the jazz improviser proach."8 This infusion was a central element in the over the course of the history of jazz. The influence creation of a music that sought once again to em- of the flatted fifths of the beboppers has already brace the listener. The respect for Russell's work been noted. But nowhere is this aspect of Russell's among the non-jazz composers was also evidenced thesis more evident than in his defining, in Lydian by his being commissioned to compose his "Elec- concept terminology, the two basic approaches to tronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature" by Ny improvisation — the vertical and the horizontal. Musikk, the Norwegian branch of the International Coleman Hawkins's style represents the paradigm Society for Contemporary Music. of vertical playing in which the improviser addresses Now that Schuller's failure to consider Russell's each passing chord, playing a melody that best con- place as a theorist in jazz history has been addressed, veys the sound of the chord. Lester Young offers the in the second part of this paper I will correct an error paradigm of the horizontal style. Where Hawkins in the scholarship of authors such as Wilfrid Mellers responds to each chord, Young tends to bypass in his Music in a New Found Land. The error to chords in favor of what Russell calls "tonic stations." which I allude can seriously impair one's under- In Young's system, tonic stations are often defined standing of the social, cultural, and aesthetic back- by determining what the resolving tendency of two ground out of which the Lydian concept evolved. or more chords might be. Take, for example, the fol- In Mellers' book one finds the following state- lowing series of chords: Fm7 Bbm7 Eb7 Abmaj. ment: Where Hawkins would address each chord as it ap- More creatively vigorous than the academi- pears, Young might go to Abmaj, imposing an Ab cally trained jazz composers who stem from blues scale on the preceding progression of chords. the manner of the Modern Jazz Quartet is In the vertical approach, scales color chords. In the George Russell, a highly sophisticated musi- horizontal approach, chords color scales. cian who has become guide and mentor to "ad- In his 1953 work Russell was to anticipate in Lyd- vanced" developments. As a white [emphasis ian terms what was to be the next major revolution in mine] man he has tried to do what Cecil Taylor jazz. He spells out what he describes as the "out- attempted as a coloured man: and has, per- going," chromatically enhanced, horizontal ap- haps, failed for a reason that complements Tay- proach, which found its practical realization in the lor's failure. In Taylor's case the compositional work of Ornette Coleman. What Coleman intro- elements that were supposed to discipline the duced was an approach to tonality in which the im- primitivism did not convince, and this made proviser might relate to just one tonic center, for ex- the primitivism itself seem suspect. 9 ample, the key of the music, or proceed freely by se- lecting tonic centers on the spur of the moment. The In the case of the "white" Russell, the situation is Lester Young approach is thus taken to its outer reversed: "the explosion of jazz license (read "primi- 10 chromatic limits. Coleman studied with Russell in tivism") . . . sounds the most 'thought up'." 1959 at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts. While this writer wishes to make no claim about Although he had already arrived at his horizontal the scientific cogency of ways of reckoning race in style by this time, one cannot help but note that the the United States, Russell's birth certificate reads basic principles of this style were spelled out by Rus- "Negro." Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 23, sell in 1953. 1923, his biological father was a white Oberlin Col- Russell had an influence on figures outside of the lege music professor; his mother a black Oberlin un- jazz domain as well. Indiana University professor dergraduate. He was adopted a year later by Joseph

17 Russell, a railroad chef, and his wife Bessie, a regis- his participation in the Boy Scouts Drum and Bugle tered nurse, and raised in the Walnut Hills section of Corp. At the age of 13 his parents purchased a drum Cincinnati. Whether race is considered biologically set, and, with the encouragement and tolerance of a or sociologically, existentially Russell was black. loving mother who turned over her living room to Nothing drives this point home more clearly than his him, George set about teaching himself how to play. experience as a seriously injured, six-year-old, hit- In time he learned the fundamentals, and he began and-run victim, who was barred from admission to to listen to and closely watch the older boys and men the Jewish Hospital by a nurse who refused to admit who played around the neighborhood. him because he was "colored." By the age of 14 Russell's interest in music, cou- The environment in which Russell grew up was pled with his adolescent interest in exploring the one in which black music — sacred and secular— was adult world, took him far beyond the boundaries of ubiquitous. Although his mother attended Mt. Zion Walnut Hills. He began making the long four mile Methodist Church, whose congregation included a trek down Gilbert Avenue to downtown Cincinnati number of Cincinnati's black elite, young George and the Cotton Club. Although "Cotton Clubs" was particularly attracted to the music he heard at were to be found in just about every American city the sanctified church near his home and at the re- with a sizable black population, Cincinnati's was vival meetings that he was taken to by his mother known throughout the black entertainment world. and Bishop Mary Mack (a popular midwestern Jimmy Lunceford, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, Andy evangelist in the 1920s and 30s, whose son was Rus- Kirk, and others of that stature appeared there. The sell's playmate). Cotton Club became school for George as his atten- dance at Withrow High School dropped precipi- tously. Finally, at the age of 16, George dropped out The experimentation with the Lydian of high school and began working at a downtown scale was, he notes, inspired by the department store in the day and playing at night. Racism and racial discrimination played a most practice ofDizzy Gillespie, Charlie important part in Russell's life, as it did in the lives Parker, et al, utilizing the flatted of of most of his peers. Interviews conducted with fifth of major chords. These some of his early associates — musical and others — musicians were the creators of the revealed that racism cut quite deeply into all of their lives. interviewee had collection so-called "BeBop" music. Every a of horror stories to tell. George recalls being pushed down the hall by the gym teacher at the Hoffman School who

Russell's first attraction to jazz came as a young yelled at him, "You ain't nothing but a nigger." He child when he heard the legendary Fate Marable's was discouraged from participating in the high band on riverboat excursions. Famed arranger Jimmy school band. He walked out of class and out of Mundy was a Kerper Street neighbor. Cousins of Art Withrow High School for the last time when he was Tatum lived on the terrace behind the Russells's ordered by his English teacher to read the racially house, and George could hear the redoubtable pian- derogatory monologue of a stereotypical slave. ist practice whenever Tatum was in town. Zack Russell's contact with formal education did not Whyte, leader of the popular Chocolate Beau Brum- end, however, with his exit from Withrow High mels, lived but a block away. Two blocks away were School. A little over a year later, he was offered a Duffy's Tavern and the Avalon Club where many fa- scholarship to attend the preparatory high school mous musicians played or came to relax. And three department of Wilberforce University. He had by blocks away was the Manse Hotel where many of the that time developed into one of the better drummers top stars, barred from downtown hotels, stayed. in Cincinnati. The drummer in the college's dance — George's first display of musical ability came band — the Wilberforce Collegians had dropped through his performances as a boy soprano when he out, and George was selected as his replacement. It was frequently called upon to sing at his family's was at Wilberforce that he received his first formal church and at social club programs. At the age often instruction in music from Professor Anna Terry, he shared billing with Fats Waller in a program at the mentor to a long list of distinguished African- local YMCA. His interest in vocal music continued Americans. About Russell, Professor Terry related: through his adolescent years as he and three high "When he came to me he didn't know a thing . . . school buddies formed a quartet that sang modern what a staff was. I had to teach him all of the funda- 11 harmony and made appearances in southern Ohio mentals." and Indiana. He also sang in the Withrow High Russell left Wilberforce before receiving his di- School Glee Club and later in the Wilberforce Uni- ploma, eventually landing the drummer's chair with versity Glee Club. the highly-regarded Benny Carter and his orchestra It was, however, the drums that really drew Rus- in 1943. It was during this period that he made the sell's interest. This interest first manifested itself in decision to put his drums aside and take up the com-

18 poser-arranger's pen. The event that led to that fate- ing Time Orchestra has appeared at major festivals ful choice was the fact that Max Roach took the job and concerts in the United States and abroad. Not- with Carter away from Russell. Evaluating his skills withstanding the marked increase in such activities, and stacking them up against the amazing Roach, he remains heavily immersed in his academic and Russell quickly concluded that he was no match for theoretical work. He continues to teach privately at the latter and that his life's work lay elsewhere. the New England Conservatory of Music. Work on a Russell learned the rudiments of arranging from a second volume of the Lydian chromatic concept of friend, the gifted bassist Harold Gaston, while both tonal organization and the development of a way of were confined in a Cincinnati sanitarium. Soon he schematizing rhythm have been some of his major was to do an arrangement for his former boss, Car- concerns of late. All in all, it seems clear that jazz's ter. Shortly after that, in 1944, he was arranging for first theorist will continue to exert a broad influence, the Earl Hines Band in Chicago. The conversion was both unique and profound, on modern music. now complete. REFERENCES

Eventually Russell was drawn to New York by the 'Schuller, G. (1968). Early Jazz. London: Oxford University Press. new music being played there. By 1945 he was back P. 134. 2 his Ibid. P. 135. in the hospital. Once again confinement marked 3 Nisenson, E. (1982). RoundMidnight. New York: Dial Press. P. 148. a crucial period in his musical development. While *Ibid. P. 150. at St. Joseph's Hospital in the Bronx, he evolved the 5 Russell, G. (1959). TheLydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organi- zation. New York: Concept Publishing Co. P. 1. principles of the Lydian chromatic concept of tonal 'Interview with Art Farmer. Boston, MA. November 10, 1984. organization. 'Baker, D. (1968). Techniques of Improvisation: The Lydian Chro- Recent years have witnessed a wider recognition matic Concept. (Vol. 1). Libertyville, IL: Today's Music "Interview with Kora Kolberg. Olso, Norway. August 19, 1985. of Russell as a composer and band leader. He landed "Mellers, W. (1966). Music in a New Found Land. New York: Alfred a contract with Blue Note Records in 1980. This was A. Knopf. P. 365. his first contract with an American record company i0Ibid. "Interview with Anna Terry. Cambridge, MA. April 11, 1984. in close to two decades. Along with wide critical ac-

claim for his music, his Blue Note album African Robert E. Moore, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Black Studies, Game received a Grammy nomination, and his Liv- University of Massachusetts at Boston.

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