George Russell

Jazz musician and composer

• Born: June 23, 1923
• Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
• Died: July 27, 2009
• Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts

Russell was a jazz composer, arranger, pianist, and theorist. He was the author of Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization(1953), one of the earliest theoretical studies of jazz. In this book, Russell developed a theoretical concept that contributed to the evolution of the modal jazz movement in the 1950’s.

Early Life

George Allen Russell was born on June 23, 1923, in the Walnut Hills district of Cincinnati, Ohio, to a single mother named Mary Smith. Soon after birth, he was adopted by Joseph A. Russell, a chef on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Bessie O. Russell, a registered nurse. Bessie often took her son on steamboat trips, on which they heard various riverboat orchestras, including Fate Marable’s band. Russell was particularly attracted to the drums and started to play in the Boy Scouts marching band. By the age of fourteen, Russell was playing drums regularly in a nightclub in Walnut Hills. At Withrow High School, Russell sang in the boys’ glee club and a cappella choir. He also played drums in a school club.

Because of his reputation as a drummer, Russell received a scholarship to attend Wilberforce University, where he joined the jazz band, the Collegians. Around 1941, Russell was drafted into the armed forces, but he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalized for six months. While he was in the hospital, he received instruction in basic music theory from Harold Gaston, a friend and fellow patient. Russell composed his first piece, “New World,” in the hospital.

In 1944, Russell moved to Chicago and joined Benny Carter’s band as the drummer. However, when Max Roach took over his position, Russell decided to give up playing and focus on composition.

Life’s Work

In May, 1945, Russell arrived in New York. There, he met a group of jazz musicians, including Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Gil Evans, and Gerry Mulligan. In the same year, Russell was hospitalized again with tuberculosis and began his theoretical study on jazz, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. Its first edition was published privately in 1953. In this work, Russell demonstrated a theory based on the Lydian scale, which originated from one of the church modes. According to Russell, the Lydian chromatic scale serves as the harmonic source of traditional chords. Applying the concepts, Russell analyzed not only jazz but also classical music.

After Russell was released from the hospital on Christmas Day, 1946, he began writing a series of experimental compositions. He combined elements of bebop and Latin rhythms in “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop,” written for Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in 1947. In 1949, Russell composed “Bird in Igor’s Yard” for clarinetist Buddy DeFranco. “Bird” refers to Charlie Parker, “Igor” to Igor Stravinsky. Russell merged the harmonic languages of classical music and jazz in this work, which has a complex arrangement and progressive sounds. In early 1951, Russell wrote “Odd Jenar” and “Ezz-Thetics” for alto saxophonist Lee Konitz.

Russell recorded his first album, Jazz Workshop, with Hal McKusick, Barry Galbraith, Milton Hinton, Joe Harris, Art Farmer, and Bill Evans in 1956. Russell began playing piano and established a sextet with a group of musicians from 1960 to 1963. Their recordings included Stratusphunk (1960).

Russell toured Europe in 1964 and ended up staying in Sweden and Norway for the next five years. After returning to the United States in 1969, he began teaching in the jazz program at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, at the invitation of Gunther Schuller. While teaching, Russell formed a big band, Living Time Orchestra, and toured around the world in the mid-1980’s.

Russell received numerous awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award in 1990. He died of complications of Alzheimer’s disease on July 27, 2009, in Boston.

Significance

Russell introduced the idea of the Lydian chromatic scale to jazz, influencing major jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane; Davis’s masterpiece Kind of Blue is one example of a work that reflects Russell’s influence. Russell argued that thinking in terms of scales and modes, rather than chord progression, allowed performers more improvisational freedom. Throughout his life, he experimented with new approaches to jazz performance, as shown in his Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature (1968), which employed electronic sounds with live jazz.

Bibliography

Heining, Duncan. George Russell: The Story of an American Composer. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010. In this first extensive biography of Russell, Heining illustrates not only the life of the musician but also the history of modern jazz.

Ratliff, Ben. “George Russell, Composer Whose Theories Sent Jazz in a New Direction, Dies at Eighty-Six.” The New York Times, July 29, 2009. Ratliff offers a brief biography of Russell and information on his theory in this obituary.

Russell, George. The Art and Science of Tonal Gravity. Vol. 1 in Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. 1953. 4th ed. Brookline, Mass.: Concept, 2001. Russell brought a modal concept into jazz and demonstrated the link between jazz and classical music.