Playlist for the Unpopular Music webcast for June 27, 2015

Another week, another American musical legend is gone. This time it's composer, conductor, educator, hornist, and musical philosopher Gunther Schuller. It is mostly the philosophical role that's influenced me, the idea that jazz could be as serious and sophisticated and "classical" music, and certainly not to be considered a lesser art form. His attempts to meld the two worlds, the so-called "third stream", were perhaps bested by others, although his contributions are not easily dismissed. (And, as Ethan Iverson points out, the third-stream identification distracts from his status as an premier modernist composer.)

I'd been listening to Ran Blake's excellent new album Ghost Tones, itself a tribute to the late George Russell, when I heard the news. Blake and Russell were Schuller's star hires for what was at the time New England Conservatory's Third Stream department (now known as the Creative Improvisation department), and both men have created works of substance and innovation, bringing academic ideas into jazz, as Schuller imagined. And so, that album became a jumping off point for this webcast. I tried to make some connections from these three, and other musicians associated with Schuller as well - Miles Davis and Gil Evans (Schuller played horn on Birth of the Cool and Porgy & Bess), Ornette Coleman (whom Schuller tried to tutor until Coleman felt he was being led from his instincts), fellow Birth of the Cool alum Gerry Mulligan, Joe Lovano (with whom Schuller collaborated on the fantastic Rush Hour album), Stan Kenton, who had his own third-stream ideas, object of admiration and inspiration Duke Ellington and one time NEC professor Jimmy Giuffre. (I couldn't find the right Mingus selection).

Unpopular Music - June 27, 2015 by Unpopularfred on Mixcloud

See the playlist after the break ...