Note from Duncan Heining:
“Sadly, very little seems to be happening to acknowledge George's centenary. Hans Koller (https://www.hanskoller.co.uk/) and I are trying to do a few things. On Thursday 29th June, there is a performance of Living Time at the Vortex in London. There is another concert of New York, N.Y. at the Guildhall School in September organised by Robert Mitchell. The only significant event I am aware of is in Oslo, organised by John Hauknes.”
Note from John Hauknes
George Russell–The man from Lydia 100 years
Today, June 23, 2023, it is exactly 100 years since composer, music theorist, teacher, bandleader and musician George Russell was born. Jazz scholar Johan Hauknes marked the anniversary in the Oslo Jazz Circle with a lecture on George Russell's music, his theories and his importance for Norwegian jazz.
When George Russell visited Stockholm in 1964, he quickly decided to stay. In 1965 he played at the Molde jazz festival, and played for the first time with Jan Garbarek, Jon Christensen and other Norwegian musicians. In the following years, Russell was to become an important teacher and inspiration for young Norwegian and Swedish jazz musicians.
George Russell was early active in the work to unite jazz and contemporary music, with great orchestral ambitions on behalf of jazz music. He joined the circle early on that was behind the ideas about new music that was termed Third Stream Music. He received considerable support for these thoughts in the meeting with the Norwegian contemporary music community. This meeting was of great importance not only for Russell's further musical development. With his work in Oslo and Stockholm, George Russell contributed to the foundation of Scandinavian modal jazz, which flourished in the 1970s.
George Russell played at the Kongsberg jazz festival three times, the first time in 1969, the last time in 1979. The third time was a historic church concert in 1971, where Russell proclaimed "Listen to the Silence"! At the Molde jazz festival, however, he only played once. But this one time was to be a watershed in Norwegian jazz.
His ideas and theories gathered in his Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization are a musicological masterpiece that laid a foundation for understanding and renewing not only the new modal jazz that emerged in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, but which became significant for all jazz going forward. This laid the foundation for a significant renewal of jazz's forms of expression throughout the world. It allowed jazz to take root in countless musical traditions, far removed from the traditions it grew out of.
The lecture illuminated, among other things, his production during the years he was in Norway and Sweden, the long lines in his musical work and discussed his importance for the renewal of Norwegian jazz in the decades after.
Note from me
USA: Sunday June 25 2023 from 10 pm pst
https://m.facebook.com/FlotationDeviceRadio host Michael Schell: Track 1 Ilgenfritz, Track 2 Paul Bley, Track 3 Sergio Armaroli, Track 4 George Russell Electronic Sonata Part 1, scenes 1-7 (1968).
And this: Jazz 88.3 KCCK-FM
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=807 ... 9269262072
Thanks to Hiro Honshuku:
https://www.facebook.com/1664486456/pos ... tid=v7YzmG
Happy George Russell 100th
He was my mentor since I arrived in the US. I worked for him for 20 years. He was a genius. This song is an excerpt from "It's About Time" (1997). He wrote this for his wife, Alice. As far as I know, this is the only Bossa Nova he wrote. It's an amazingly beautiful piece. His lines don't go with the known chord scales, which makes everything so special. Check out the entire suite. The section that comes after this is so powerful. We played this live on every tour.