Gunther Schuller & Third Stream jazz

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Third Stream jazz is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller to describe a musical genre that is a synthesis of classical music and jazz.   

After World War II in Europe and the United States there was a period of artistic experimentalism. Like the period in France after the Franco-Prussian War (Impressionism) and in the late 19th century, the pre/post World War I period of (Expressionism), the post World War I period of Modernism was no different with composers trying to 'write music for the sake of music' and not attaching it to a social meaning or meant for a social cause (see Darmstadt School).      

Gunther Schuller 

 photographer unknown 

Schuller insisted that "by definition there is no such thing as 'Third Stream Jazz'".       

He noted that while purists on both sides of Third Stream objected to tainting their favorite music with the other, more strenuous objections were typically made by jazz musicians who felt such efforts were "an assault on their traditions." Schuller wrote that "by designating the music as a 'separate, Third Stream,' the other two mainstreams could go about their way unaffected by the attempts at fusion." Because Third Stream draws on classical as much as jazz, it is generally required that composers and performers be proficient in both genres.      

Critics argued that Third Stream—by drawing on two very different styles—dilutes the power of each in combining them. Others reject such notions, and consider Third Stream an interesting musical development.      

In 1981, Schuller offered a list of "What Third Stream is not": 

• It is not jazz with strings.
• It is not jazz played on 'classical' instruments.
• It is not classical music played by jazz players.
• It is not inserting a bit of Ravel or Schoenberg between be-bop changes—nor the reverse.
• It is not jazz in fugal form.
• It is not a fugue played by jazz players.
• It is not designed to do away with jazz or classical music; it is just another option amongst many for today’s creative musicians.

Schuller suggested that a similar fusion was made by Béla Bartók, who earned great acclaim after incorporating elements of Hungarian folk music into his music, which had earlier been heavily influenced by Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss.      

Béla Bartók

photographer unknown

   

Attempts to integrate jazz and classical music began in the early 1900s almost as soon as the former became recognised as a distinct style of music. Some ragtime music drew upon classical music, and symphonic pieces such as Rhapsody In Blue (1924) (link below), by George Gershwin, blended jazz and symphonic music. The piece La création du monde by French composer Darius Milhaud includes jazz-inspired elements, including a jazz fugue. Igor Stravinsky drew upon jazz for several compositions, such as Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music and the Ebony Concerto (the last composed for jazz clarinetist Woody Herman and his orchestra in 1945) (link below). Other notable composers who utilized jazz elements in at least a few compositions include Maurice Ravel, Bohuslav Martinů, Paul Hindemith, William Grant Still, George Antheil, Aaron Copland, Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill, Dmitri Shostakovich, Morton Gould, and Leonard Bernstein. Though few of these examples can be strictly classified as Third Stream as they do not involve improvisation, they do demonstrate that there was widespread mutual interest and appreciation between the jazz and classical traditions.  
     

The  work of Duke Ellington  has often been recognized as being among the early efforts to blend the elements associated with both genres. His music has been described as sharing characteristics with that of classical composers such as Delius, Debussy, and Ravel, particularly in impressionistic mood pieces such as Mood Indigo (link below), Dusk, and Reflections in D, as well as in more extended composed works such as Creole Rhapsody, Reminiscing in Tempo and The Tattooed Bride. These tendencies were also shared by his frequent co-composer Billy Strayhorn.     

Duke Ellington

KFG Radio Studio - November 3, 1954
photographer unknown 

The Afro-British composer Reginald Foresythe was one of the first musicians to combine the two genres from the early 1930s onwards. Branding his style "The New Music", his compositions, such as Garden of Weed, Serenade for a Wealthy Widow and the Bach-influenced Dodging A Divorcee were received well by critics but poorly by the British public, who were baffled by its radical style. However, Foresythe's music found a warmer welcome in America, particularly among black musicians, resulting in collaborations with Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and Benny Goodman.   

Reginald Foresythe

photographer unknown

Pianist Art Tatum drew upon elements of classical technique and recorded jazz versions of short pieces by European composers such as Antonín Dvořák (link below), Jules Massenet, and Anton Rubinstein.       

Art Tatum

photographer unknown

Another important jazz-classical fusion was Interlude in B-flat by Artie Shaw recorded in 1935 with the most unusual ensemble of a string quartet, a jazz rhythm section, and Shaw on clarinet and saxophone (link below).      

Artie Shaw

Michael Ochs Archives/Stringer/Getty Images  

Much of the Charles Mingus oeuvre before and after the coining of the term "Third Stream" parallels Schuller's idea. Indeed, the title of Mingus' two-part album Jazzical Moods (1955), a blend of "jazz" and "classical," may have helped to inspire Schuller; the two men were also friends. The immense final work, Epitaph, by Mingus was edited and premiered at Lincoln Center in 1989 by Schuller.  

Charles Mingus - 1960 

photographer unknown

 

Despite the early examples noted above, critic Scott Yanow writes, "it was not until the mid-to-late '50s that more serious experiments began to take place. Schuller, J. J. Johnson, John Lewis and Bill Russo were some of the more significant composers attempting to bridge the gap between jazz and classical music."           

A great example of this is the John Lewis composition for the 1961 production for the San Francisco Ballet, Original Sin, which I will never forget seeing for both the music and the dancing. Produced under the direction of Lew Christensen, it featured Adam and Eve in flesh-tone body tights with a brilliant lighting design that made them appear nude. Of course, 10 years later, dancers actually DID dance nude in ballet. Somehow, the earlier incarnation seemed more stimulating; funny how that works.  

John Lewis ~ Original Sin 

vinyl LP front cover 

photo by Styrous®

 

Yanow also suggests that the impact of Third Stream music was blunted by the rise of free jazz in the late 1950s, which overtook Third Stream as the leading development in jazz. Schuller was heavily involved with the Columbia Records LPs Music For Brass (1957) and Modern Jazz Concert (1958), later re-issued to become what is known as the recording Birth Of The Third Stream (now as CD). The recording greatly helped to push the concept and legitimacy of the style and approach to this music.   

Jazz composer and producer Teo Macero, who went on to produce Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, was influenced by the Third Stream movement. Other notable examples of the style include Lewis's Modern Jazz Quartet and solo efforts, Teddy Charles, Don Ellis, Gil Evans, Bill Russo, George Russell, Brubeck and his brother, Howard Brubeck, Jacques Loussier and his Play Bach Trio, Jimmy Giuffre, Toshiko Akiyoshi, David Amram, Ran Blake, David Baker, and Bob Graettinger. Lewis was instrumental in arranging for Atlantic Records to record Schuller's Jazz Abstractions in 1960 featuring Jim Hall, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and Bill Evans. Many free jazz composers and performers, such as Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Yitzhak Yedid, the band Oregon, and Sun Ra, were also influenced by the Third Stream school.    

Fred Tompkins, has forged a style which seems to enjoy the benefits of fully notated composition, while also capturing the strong, propulsive essence of jazz. His early works were often accompanied by the drumming of Elvin Jones and then by other drummers from New York or St. Louis.   

Fred Tompkins

photographer unknown

Examples of recordings that synthesize composed and improvised music are the albums Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis and Gil Evans; European Windows and the film soundtrack Music from Odds Against Tomorrow by John Lewis; Extension by Clare Fischer (as well as the orchestral portions of the Cal Tjader West Side Story and Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen, both arranged by Fischer), Focus and Stan Getz Plays Music from the Soundtrack of Mickey One by Getz and Eddie Sauter; Perceptions by Dizzy Gillespie and J. J. Johnson; Alegría by Wayne Shorter; Scorched by Mark-Anthony Turnage and John Scofield; Wide Angles by Michael Brecker, and Myth of the Cave by Yitzhak Yedid. These albums feature a soloist improvising in a jazz style over a complex composed background. The music of American classical composer Charles Ives has been utilized in this way in the 2014 release Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra.       

Composer Krzysztof Penderecki experimented with compositionally guided free jazz improvisation in his Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra. Hans Werner Henze also brought free jazz into his compositions—-notably, in Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer—-though some may consider his use of jazz to be more incorporated texture than synthesis.

Krzysztof Penderecki

photographer unknown

Presently, the contemporary Ukrainian composer-pianist Nikolai Kapustin writes fully notated music in a jazz idiom that fuses the Russian piano tradition with the virtuosic styles of Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and others.

Nikolai Kapustin

photographer unknown

         
       
Viewfinder links:              
                 
Leonard Bernstein          
Eric Dolphy        
Antonín Dvořák      
Duke Ellington       
George Gershwin              
Dizzy Gillespie        
Benny Goodman            
Stan Kenton ~ City of Glass & Third Stream jazz         
Teo Macero        

Art Tatum            
Cal Tjader       
Kurt Weill          
     
Net links:              
                 
Gunther Schuller:           
The World According to Gunther Schuller           
Multiple Streams          

       

YouTube links:              
                 
Béla Bartók ~ Hungarian Folk Melodies for Violin          
Duke Ellington ~ Mood Indigo
Reginald Foresythe ~ Garden of Weed       
George Gershwin ~ Rhapsody In Blue   
John Lewis ~ Original Sin:
         Creation Of The World And Creation Of Adam        
Charles Mingus ~ Jazzical Moods (various selections)    
Camille Saint-Saëns ~ Danse Macabre       
Artie Shaw ~ Interlude in B-flat             
        
 Igor Stravinsky ~ Ebony Concerto (with Benny Goodman)    
Art Tatum ~ Humoresque by Dvorak        
with Louis Andriessen on Creativity (1 hour, 25 minutes)       

with David Amram: "O Pioneers!" (1 hour, 2 minutes)     

       
         

      

      

Styrous® ~  Friday, August 25. 2017      

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 Music Notes 

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