Gunther schuller rip

[Alyn_Shipton]

I knew and liked Gunther, and he is the only major US jazz scholar who had not only read some of my books but offered helpful criticism and advice. He appeared in my Ornette series for Jazz File in 2000, and was excellent value. We were last in touch when I was writing the programme notes for the Scottish National Jazz orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010 when he brought over an armful of his Ellington scores to play with them. I have a feeling his big Mingus reconstructed symphony (Epitaph?) was heard on Radio 3, and his pioneering recording of the Schoenberg Wind Quintet is played from time to time. So too are bits of his performing version of Joplin's Treemonisha.

[Alyn_Shipton]

PS the Ornette playing with Lenox Orchestra album was in episode one of my Ornette series, with reminiscence from both Gunther and John Lewis.

[Ian Thumwood]

Gunther Schuller's "Early Jazz" is a sometimes difficult book but it certainly makes you listen to the music is a fresh manner. I don't know of anyone else who actually treated jazz with the kind of technical insight before him even if there was a lot of appreciation for jazz from within academic circles well before Schuller.

It is quite interesting to consider Schuller as a jazz "authority" as I think the musical analysis was quite selective and there is a tendency to over-elaborate some elements within the music which might not be too significant within Classical music even though the fact that he applied the same degree of analysis definitely helped people understand that jazz was worthy of serious analysis. What I would say was that I don't feel that he was a great historian and not as rigorous in his research and writing in this aspect as he was in assessing the music itself. Even as a teenager, I felt his analysis of African rhythms and Indian harmonies was a bit suspect. The fact that his appraisal was, by necessity, based on records also made his historical conclusions not quite as sound as they would be today with many jazz writers more disciplined and capable as historians.

There was a second volume dedicated to "The Swing Era" which eventually defeated me. I felt that this book really pandered to his own prejudices so that John Kirby could be dismissed as "barely jazz" and someone like Glenn Miller praised. The recordings selected are fascinating and it is an intriguing book to dip in to. Despite that, I have read works by other writers who have applied the same , skilful and insightful knowledge as Schuller to the same recordings and have some up with totally different conclusions. e.g. Jeffrey Magee's book about Fletcher Henderson. Magee is also much better as a historian too. Maybe with the passage of 50-odd years and nearly 30 years in the case of "The Swing Era" I think the judgements are probably overdue for reconsideration. The latter book did seem inconsistent and I was never entirely convinced by his conclusions. It didn't carry the same conviction as "Early Jazz" where the relative lack of recordings made his assessments more keenly judged.

Despite my reservations nowadays, Schuller's book inspired me to explore jazz and to listen to the music in a different manner. It is a shame that the proposed third volume on Be-bop never came in to fruition.

[Jazzrook]

It suffered from the Jez treatment, didn't it? A bit of a reverse Midas, isn't he?

I rarely listen to Jo3 nowadays but had to hear the Ornette tribute.
It was a disappointing and rather shallow 90 minutes with little insight from Jez & John Fordham(a lot of gratuitous chortling at one point).
I imagine Brian Morton or Brian Priestley doing a much better tribute programme.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I rarely listen to Jo3 nowadays but had to hear the Ornette tribute.
It was a disappointing and rather shallow 90 minutes with little insight from Jez & John Fordham(a lot of gratuitous chortling at one point).
I imagine Brian Morton or Brian Priestley doing a much better tribute programme.

Someone "twittered" Jezzzzza and asked if he could repeat a Brian Morton program on Ornette. Sorry we cant do that, was the reply,

Although Branford Marsalis was a dissenting voice re Ornette's saxophone ability it might have been better to give him more space, at least he had a point of view. The Five Spot era was barely covered except for how much others disliked what he was doing, Why not examine the implications and those he did shake?



BN.

[Colonel Danby]

A sad passing. I flew to my record collection to find some Schuller as a tribute to his work, but only discovered the 'Spectra' for orchestra of 1958 which I'm playing now, shame upon me, but there we are. (Interesting collection of modern pieces by Carter, Babbitt and Cage too, with the Chicago SO conducted by Jimmy Levine).

RIP Gunther

[Nick Armstrong]

Joplin

Schuller's rôle in the ragtime revival in the early 70s coincided with one of my first musical enthusiasms, so his has been a name I've known since a child. One of my earliest LP purchases (Xmas Boots gift vouchers, doubtless, c. 1973) was his classic album of the instrumental versions (known as The Red Back Book from its appearance in 1912) of a selection of Joplin rags with the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. I listened to that LP times without number.

Thank you Mr Schuller, and RIP

[Jazzrook]

Gunther Schuller's restoration of Charles Mingus's 'Epitaph' was probably his greatest work:

https://www.allmusic.com/album/epitaph-mw0000204400

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaph_(Charles_Mingus_album)

[Jazzrook]

Gunther Schuller conducting Charles Mingus's 'Epitaph' at Jazzfest, Berlin, 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIgfCI9-i3E

...and also at New York's Lincoln Center, 1989:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mSuZkHDPlg

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

12.15 R3 today, Music Matters...

Gunther Schuller 1925-2015

Tom Service pays tribute to the American
composer, conductor and performer Gunther
Schuller, talks to opera director Damiano
Michieletto and meets the outgoing director
of the Manchester International Festival, Alex
Poots.

BN.

[Bryn]

Schuller's rôle in the ragtime revival in the early 70s coincided with one of my first musical enthusiasms, so his has been a name I've known since a child. One of my earliest LP purchases (Xmas Boots gift vouchers, doubtless, c. 1973) was his classic album of the instrumental versions (known as The Red Back Book from its appearance in 1912) of a selection of Joplin rags with the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. I listened to that LP times without number. ... Thank you Mr Schuller, and RIP

This is what I recall as my introduction to Gunther Schuller's work. Thank you Maestro:

[Serial_Apologist]

This is what I recall as my introduction to Gunther Schuller's work. Thank you Maestro:

My introduction to Schuller was via "Conversation", the final track on the Third Stream Music album on Atlantic the MJQ made with Jimmy Giuffre and the Beaux Arts String Quartet - the golden LP cover dominated by the strange surrealistic shape with inward and outward pointing thumb tips that for me summed up the idea of interpenetrating idioms.

By coincidence, Gunther Schuller's very name is just now popping up on Radio 3, courtesy Seedy Review Classical Voice reviewer Gillian Moore.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

By coincidence, Gunther Schuller's very name is just now popping up on Radio 3, courtesy Seedy Review Classical Voice reviewer Gillian Moore.

Yes - and for the first time I realize that his first name isn't pronounced in the German way.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

My introduction to Schuller was via "Conversation", the final track on the Third Stream Music album on Atlantic the MJQ made with Jimmy Giuffre and the Beaux Arts String Quartet - the golden LP cover dominated by the strange surrealistic shape with inward and outward pointing thumb tips that for me summed up the idea of interpenetrating idioms.

By coincidence, Gunther Schuller's very name is just now popping up on Radio 3, courtesy Seedy Review Classical Voice reviewer Gillian Moore.

That "Sony 20C Masterworks" box set she played Schuller's "Klee" extract from sounds a steal. 16 CDs for around £20/25 on Amazon.

BN.

[Beef Oven!]

RIP

First came across his music with that Levine CD on DG, and more lately his piano music on Naxos American Classics.