Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos George Russell Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos JAZZ IN THE SPACE AGE George Russell On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first object placed by humanity in orbit around a celestial body, thus inaugurating the era of the space race. Inevitably, composers were also inspired by the new adventurous spirit that this era seemed to contain. In 1960, George Russell and a group of jazz stars recorded Jazz in the Space Age, a historic record already featuring some ideas from the composer’s revolutionary Lydian Chromatic Con- cept of Tonal Organization. But what does this music do anyway? Everything. It gravitates. It draws us in, it pushes us away. It allows us to wander around, perhaps looking at this nearby planet, inter‑ secting with a star, perhaps deviating from a meteorite at high speed. Russell wrote the score for Jazz In the Space Age and inten‑ tionally left a space open for free improvisation – he fixed the sat‑ ellites in orbits and the imagination of his celestial bodies did the rest. He brought the universe with all its possibilities and mysteries into the music. A cosmos that could seem infinite to us, just like music. Sixty years later we allow ourselves to gravitate to this score, today with other celestial bodies that gaze upon this music through its unique cosmic dust. eorge Russell (1923 ‑ His talents as an arranger and his 2009) had a winding originality then began to reveal formative career, themselves: in 1947 Dizzy Gillespie’s from playing drums orchestra played his double Cuban in a school context composition Be/Cubano Bop, the first Gto becoming a central figure in ever fusion between Cuban Afro jazz teaching at the New England rhythms and jazz. Conservatory starting in 1969 and To talk about the composer, we continuing for decades. However, mustn’t leave out the theoretical back in 1941, tuberculosis took him side. George Russell developed the to hospital for six months, and there Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal he met another patient who gave Organization, the result of reflections him the fundamentals of harmony and experiences begun in the 1940s, and arrangements. He played with with a first restricted edition in 1953 Benny Carter’s band, but would be ‑ and successive re ‑editions added in replaced by Max Roach ‑ leading him 1959, 1964 and 2001. It is common to to give up the drums. Already in New say that it is the only musical treatise York, he was attending musicians’ born in jazz ‑ and even if it is not the meetings at Gil Evans’ house, which only one today, it is certainly the most included figures such as Miles Davis, original and complete, the one that Gerry Mulligan, Max Roach, Johnny is at the origin of all the theories that Carisi and, at times, Charlie Parker. followed it. But what really matters, in the context of this album, is to hospitalization contributed to George understand in what sense Russell’s Russell’s concentration on his studies, thought has shaped his music and and between 1950 and 1953 he created that of several of the most influential his influential theory, fuelled also by composers and soloists ever (names classes with the German composer like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Stefan Wolpe, professor of several jazz Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, for musicians of that time. example), and how it is fundamental to The complexity of George Russell’s the emergence of such central objects ideas makes his study somewhat as Miles Davis’ album Kind of Blue – unreachable to a layman in music simply the most successful jazz theory and difficult even for the album ever. instrumentalist who is not dedicated to Russell’s impetus for his research improvisation or composition. In short, is said to have been the answer he Russell starts from the analysis of received from Miles Davis to a question music that preceded him, both in jazz of his own: What would be Miles’ great (especially soloists like Lester Young, musical goal?; “I want to learn all the Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker) changes”. Since Miles had already and in classical tradition (he analyses mastered all the chord progressions, excerpts from Ravel or Bach in the Russell interpreted the answer as a 2001 edition of the book), and suggests desire to discover a new way of playing a method contrary to the formatted on harmonic structures. Another thought of the Western musician: the basis of music is not a scale from which that this is only the initial foundation to build chord sequences; but rather, on for George Russell’s proposals, which, the basis of the chord, different scales in fact, extend to variants of this can be used, with sequential levels of Lydian mode, including blues scales dissonance up to total chromaticity and the traditional major and minor (use of all 12 notes of an octave). ones, to the point of allowing for the The primary scale is the so ‑called overlapping of different harmonic Lydian mode, offering a stability layers and for reaching different from which tensions and resolutions densities according to the choices may (or may not) be created. What of the improviser/composer. happens with the use of a major scale To a greater or lesser degree, and as a basis is that it already entails a sometimes with other nomenclatures, direction, already implies tensions and George Russell’s proposals are still resolutions, and therefore constrains the basis for much of the improvisation the improviser/composer. The Lydian techniques that are taught in jazz mode, on the other hand, peacefully schools today. In his time, they marked overlaps with a major chord, without a revolution in the musical thought of imposing tensions and resolutions jazz (with foundations in the previous ‑ as happens with the Doric mode on practice of great improvisers) and a minor chord. Hoping not to have were particularly important when alienated the less patient reader from embraced by exceptional musicians these notes with the theories of music, such as Bill Evans, Miles Davis (both we conclude this section by saying in the modal and electrical phases) or Ornette Coleman. Anyone who knows the music of these three figures will know that we are speaking of very different, sometimes even apparently contradictory, languages. The scope of Russell’s study is such that it allows for a connection to all these languages, without imposing any restrictions, instead allowing for the most varied degrees of approach to improvisation/ composition on chord progressions. In any case, this theory has been more naturally associated with a current of jazz that was born as its direct consequence: modal jazz. he proposal of the happen later in the album Jazz in the Orquestra Jazz de Space Age, the line separating the Matosinhos for the written parts from the improvised concert recorded here ones is very tenuous. Bill Evans, who is a reinterpretation played on both records, illustrated it Tof the original Jazz in the Space Age, by saying: “George composes things a seminal disc by George Russell which sound improvised. You have edited by Decca in 1960. By this time, to be deeply involved in jazz and his first record The Jazz Workshop understand all the elements to be (1956) had already been released, able to do that”. revealing a writing inspired by the This improvised character of phrasing of the great soloists and written music brought an additional manifesting the intention to create challenge into this project of the melodies as intense as if they had Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos: in been the result of the moment. The the absence of scores, a transcription composer’s writing was soloistic, of the arrangements was made by but there was naturally room for Telmo Marques, a work that required improvisation itself. But Russell an interpretation that differentiated created the sections for improvisation the written sections from those with resources unlike the usual that were (and were also in this ones: the structure did not need concert) improvised. to be restricted to the traditional The music on the album has exposure ‑ solos ‑ re ‑exposure, and the form of a suite with a recurring solos could be based on new chord theme, presented in the three sequences or ostinatos (continuously parts of “Chromatic Universe”. repeated bass lines). Here, as will In “Dimensions”, we hear a sequence of solos for the first time that provides simultaneously. Thus, a sequence that us with a characteristic sound derived would sound completely harmonious from the ideas of the Lydian Chromatic gains much more suggestive contours. Concept. Despite the space naturally The reinterpretation of a reserved for individual expression by historical album, in concert and on this soloists, Telmo Marques’ transcription edition, may intrigue some of those departs from recorded solos to who see OJM as an orchestra that suggest, for example, the use of the favours ‑ and it is true ‑ composition so ‑called “Lydian Diminished scale”, and original arrangements. Or even a symmetrical eight ‑note scale that those who think of jazz as a language was already made known by Olivier that always demands future ‑oriented Messiaen in his treatise Technique de thought, often not realizing that this mon langage musical (1944). Originally dogma can even keep them bound to featuring pianists Bill Evans and Paul certain pasts. More interesting will Bley, the arrangements explore the be thinking of this return to 1960 as dialogues between the two pianos on a trip to the source of creativity that several occasions, but also include George Russell made available to the solos of various winds. The use of most advanced musicians of his time.