George Russell at 100

June 23rd was George Russell's centenary. He was a composer and arranger and one of jazz's most important figures of the post-war years of the 20th century. He is credited as being the first jazz musician to create a theory of harmony based on jazz rather than European music, which became the key to modal jazz's ignition. All of this was published in his book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (1953). He's also one of the most overlooked and fascinating figures in jazz.

Russell was born in 1923 to a black mother and a white father. With Russell's birth, his mother and father likely agreed not to disclose that their “illegitimate" child was the product of an interracial relationship. Unable to manage his care alone, his mother put him up for adoption two days after his birth, and he was taken in by Joseph and Bessie Russell, a black married couple. Joseph was a chef on the B & O Railroad and Bessie was a nurse. At 16, Russell learned that his father was a music professor at Oberlin College.

After starting out as a drummer in the Boy Scouts, Russell was given a scholarship to Wilberforce University. In college, he joined the Collegians, a band that had nurtured jazz musicians such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Foster, and Benny Carter. Plagued by tuberculosis in his 20s, Russell gave up the drums and wrote his book, which would become a critical roadmap for the modal music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

From the late 1940s on, Russell's arrangements and compositions emerged in the hands of major jazz artists. His first was Cubano Be, Cubano Bop (1947) for Dizzy Gillespie's big band. He also helped the band fuse bebop and Cuban jazz. Russell then began playing piano and his input was critical to a long list of important albums under his name and for musicians such as Hal McKusick, Miles Davis and Art Farmer.

He moved to Scandinavia in 1964 and returned to the U.S. in 1969, when Gunther Schuller became the New England Conservatory of Music's president in Boston and appointed Russell to teach the Lydian Concept in the newly created jazz studies department. Russell remained there for many years.

For a superb biography of Russell, check out Stratusphunk: George Russell, His Life and Music (2010), by Duncan Heining here.

George Russell died in 2009 at 86.

Here are 10 of my favorite works by Russell:

Here's Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band recording George Russell's arrangement of his composition Cubano Be, Cubano Bop in 1947...



Here's Russell's arrangement for his composition of A Bird in Igor's Yard by Buddy DeFranco and His Orchestra in 1949...



Here's the Lee Konitz Sextet, with Miles Davis (tp), Lee Konitz (as), Sal Mosca (p), Billy Bauer (g) Arnold Fishkin (b) and Max Roach (d) playing Russell's Ezz-thetic in 1951...



Here's Russell's Lydian Lullaby by Hal McKusick in 1956...



Here's George Russell's Round Johnny Rondo in 1956 with Art Farmer (tp), Hal McKusick (as), Bill Evans (p), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b), Paul Motian (d) and George Russell (arr,cond)...



Here's Russell's Give 'Em Hal in 1956 with Hal McKusick (as), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b), Osie Johnson (d) and George Russell (arr)...



Here's Russell's All About Rosie from the album Brandeis Jazz Festival—-Modern Jazz Concert in 1957, with the Gunther Schuller Orchestra. Bill Evans's piano solo was the acclaimed high point of this piece and raised his profile in the jazz world...



Here's Russell's Stratusphunk from Hal McKusick's album Cross Section-Saxophones, in 1958, with Art Farmer (tp), Hal McKusick (cl,as), Bill Evans (p), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b), Charlie Persip (d) and George Russell (arr)...



Here's East Side Medley of Autumn in New York and How About You with Bill Evans on piano, from George Russell's New York, N.Y., album, in 1959, with Art Farmer, Joe Wilder and Joe Ferrante (tp); Bob Brookmeyer, Frank Rehak and Tom Mitchell (tb); Phil Woods and Hal McKusick (as,fl,cl); Benny Golson (ts); Sol Schlinger (bassax); Bill Evans (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Milt Hinton (b); Charlie Persip (d); Jon Hendricks (narrator) and George Russell (arr,dir)...



Here's Russell's arrangement of Moment's Notice from his album At the Five Spot in 1960, with Al Kiger (tp), David Baker (tb), David Young (ts), George Russell (p,arr), Chuck Israels (b) and Joe Hunt (d)...



Bonus: Here's George Russell's beautiful arrangement of Nardis for the George Russell Sextet, in 1961, with Don Ellis (tp), David Baker (tb), Eric Dolphy (b-cl), George Russell (p,arr), Steve Swallow (b) and Joe Hunt (d)...



And here's a half hour of George Russell leading the Big Band of 1967 in Stockholm, Sweden...