What is Third Stream?
Sushil Bhattacharjee
Hi,
I found about 'Third Stream" a short while ago, while reading
a biography of Miles Davis. Since then I have listened to
a recording conducted by Gunther Schuller, who seems to have
been the driving force behind this kind of music.
I'd like some more info. about the history of this style?
Did other people play this style of music?
Would you consider 'Sketches of Spain' as Third Stream?
What about some of Stan Kenton's music (like 'Adventures in Time')?
Thanks for indulging me.
Regards,
Sushil @ ltssg9.epfl.ch
---
Harvey J. Cormier
> Hi,
> I found about 'Third Stream" a short while ago, while reading
> a biography of Miles Davis. Since then I have listened to
> a recording conducted by Gunther Schuller, who seems to have
> been the driving force behind this kind of music.
>
[. . .]
>
> Did other people play this style of music?
John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet may have been the foremost and most
successful jazz musicians to adopt this label.
Lewis was also a big admirer of Ornette Coleman, and published a lot of
Coleman's music through his MJQ Music company. Thus, I've always thought
of Coleman as a part of that movement, though I don't know if he would
ever have labeled himself thus.
> Would you consider 'Sketches of Spain' as Third Stream?
> What about some of Stan Kenton's music (like 'Adventures in Time')?
Yes to both, because I tend to think of any jazz from the late '50s that
self-consciously borrows from "classical" music as Third Stream. But
perhaps the inventors of the term had in mind a more precise meaning of
which I'm unaware.
Harvey
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Harvey Cormier
Philosophy Dept.
University of Texas @ Austin
cor...@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu
"One never knows, do one?" --Fats Waller
Michael Fitzgerald
On 24 Feb 98 14:15:55 GMT, sus...@epfl.ch ( Sushil Bhattacharjee)
wrote:
>I'd like some more info. about the history of this style?
>
>What about some of Stan Kenton's music (like 'Adventures in Time')?
Third Stream music is "classical" music which has been influenced by
jazz. The idea is that Europe is the first stream, jazz is the second
stream (which has been influenced by the first) and the third stream
is the next generation kind of thing where the symphonic music has met
up with jazz.
Leonard Bernstein is a pretty good example of this, even though he is
rarely labeled Third Stream. George Gershwin, I suppose, though he was
way before the term - and I don't think his use of jazz elements was
done that well. (Not that it's bad music or anything.)
Many of the elements of Third Stream coalesced at the Lenox School of
Jazz in the late 1950's. Check my WWW site for more info.
Sketches of Spain is really just a jazz-ish interpretation of a
classical piece. I don't know that I'd call it Third Stream. As for
some Kenton stuff, yeah, probably.
Names often associated with Third Stream: Gunther Schuller (as you
rightly mention), the Modern Jazz Quartet/John Lewis, Jimmy Giuffre,
George Russell. I suppose there could be others, such as Don Ellis,
Anthony Davis, even some Ornette Coleman, but the Third Stream label
has been pretty much dropped and is only used with the late 50's -
early 60's period.
The Atlantic album Jazz Abstractions is probably the best example of
Third Stream stuff available. The Music For Brass album on CBS is
another good one.
Mike
C. Dotas
In article <cormier-2402...@cormier.phl.utexas.edu>,
cor...@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Harvey J. Cormier) wrote:
In article <34f2d...@epflnews.epfl.ch>, sus...@epfl.ch wrote:
> Hi,
> I found about 'Third Stream" a short while ago, while reading
> a biography of Miles Davis. Since then I have listened to
> a recording conducted by Gunther Schuller, who seems to have
> been the driving force behind this kind of music.
>
[. . .]
>
> Did other people play this style of music?
-----------
Check out "Into the Hot" (Impulse Mono A-9), which has music by John
Carisi and Cecil Taylor for small big band (Gil Evans is on the cover, but
didn't actually write any of the music). This album features fairly dense
harmonic language and rather thick, contrapuntally based textures s
borrowed from 20th century classical styles, mixed with a jazz rhythm
section and blowing over chord changes (although not always in the
traditional sense: in one spot of the Carisi piece Angkor Wat, the score
gives the soloist chord changes that are one-half step higher than those
played by the rhythm section). FWIW, third stream music was roundly
panned by alot of jazz and classical music crtics of the day as being
overblown and pretentious; "jazz with most of the expressions of happiness
squeezed out of it," to quote one reviewer. Third stream along the lines
of Carisi, et al, is still a hard sell today, but this doesn't take away
from the virtues some see in it.
More "accessible" strands of third stream (meaning music that draws on the
relatively simpler textures and harmonies of common-practice classical
music, rather than 20th century styles) include releases from artists like
the Modern Jazz Quartet, Stan Getz/Eddie Sauter, and Dave Brubeck, in
addition to the musicians mentioned in other posts. BTW, way back on the
Birth of the Cool (1949), one can hear some harmonic and textural
intimations of the third stream style that emerged more fully in the late
50s (especially in Carisi's Israel and Gil's Boplicity...the E
major-over-F major sonority Gil uses in certain spots is right out of the
language of 1920's Stravinsky, and is everywhere on Into the Hot). This
circle of musicians was really the genesis of the third stream, and did
include Gunther, as you indicate.
Chuck Dotas
Montreal
ENIGVAR6
Columbia has recently reissued Music for Brass and Modern Jazz Concert under
the title: Birth of the Third Stream. A lot of the major names in third stream
are on it. It includes George Russell's 'All about Rosie', with the celebrated
solo by Bill Evans. CK 64929
Jerry Karin
George Gosset
Unfortunately the recent re-release "The Third Stream", while compiling
two valuable examples of music of this intent, leaves no room for Milton
Babbitt's "All Set" for Jazz Ensemble. This piece has however been
re-issued on "Spectrum : The New Music", itself a collapse of the
Nonesuch LPs from the '70s. "All Set" is truly suggestive of some of the
the avant-jazz music that appears to hang in space (as a lot of the
'serialist' music itself feels it is doing).
The Woody Herman performance of Stranvinsky's "Ebony Concerto" has a
real bite that the version by some classical ensemble I heard on a
recent CD lacked. I don't know if Herman's version is available, but it
should be, since Stravisnky composed the piece for Herman, his then
next-door-neighbour, during his period in the US.
The recent "Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre" 2CD package on Verve
compiles interesting-right-through-to-bland orchestrations, some of
which were organised around this Third Stream idea.
Recent releases on Hat Hut/ART by Koglman and Braxton appear once again
to be blurring the jazz/classical distinctions, albeit in these rather
contrived "this is our intent" type efforts. Konitz appears on a recent
Koglman tribute to Duke Ellington, and Coe and Bley on Koglman's "White
Line" tribute to "whitey" jazz beaus from the fifties are fun, if
Koglman is again a little stoic. (imo)
George Gosset
Joqo...@xtra.co.nz
(no queue to e-mail-box; pun intended)
John Monroe
I second this recommendation! "All About Rosie" is certainly the gem of
the album (there's lots more George Russell from this era, on Decca
particularly, that's *begging* for reissue). However, the tunes from the
"Music for Brass" album are also great, especially J.J. Johnson's "Jazz
Suite for Brass," which includes some incredibly tasty fluegelhorn work by
none other than Miles Davis. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that
this record is actually the one that inspired the "Miles Ahead"
collaboration with Gil Evans.
I can't say anything about the remastering of the CD, though, because I
have this music in different form (a two-disc set on French Columbia).
Even if it's a lackluster job, though, the music demands a hearing.
John Monroe
Bob Orr
Michael Fitzgerald wrote:
> Leonard Bernstein is a pretty good example of this, even though he is
> rarely labeled Third Stream. George Gershwin, I suppose, though he was
> way before the term - and I don't think his use of jazz elements was
> done that well. (Not that it's bad music or anything.)
Interestingly enough, Ferde Grofe was Gershwin's orchestrator; both
"studied" with Maurice Ravel - at least they visited extensively in the
20s. But if you listen to Ravel's two piano concertos with their liberal
use of jazz idioms, then listen to Aaron Copland's piano concerto (1930?)
and then listen to Gershwin's extended works, the question arises as to
who is quoting whom?
Bob Orr
j.rein...@mci2000.com
George Gosset <Joqo...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
[snip]
> The Woody Herman performance of Stranvinsky's "Ebony Concerto" has a
> real bite that the version by some classical ensemble I heard on a
> recent CD lacked. I don't know if Herman's version is available, but it
> should be, since Stravisnky composed the piece for Herman, his then
> next-door-neighbour, during his period in the US.
There are two versions currently in print in the states:
1) Everest 9049 WH & the WH Orch.
Darius Milhaud: La Creation du Monde (Concert Suite)
Strav.: L'Histoire du Soldat (Suite for Chamber Ensemble)
Strav.: Ebony Concerto
2) Pearl 9292 Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky--The American Recordings (2 CDs)
New York Philharmonic Orch.
-------------
Regards,
John H. Reinschmidt
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Jazz-Institut Darmstadt
Sushil Bhattacharjee schrieb:
>
> Hi,
> I found about 'Third Stream" a short while ago, while reading
> a biography of Miles Davis. Since then I have listened to
> a recording conducted by Gunther Schuller, who seems to have
> been the driving force behind this kind of music.
>
>
> What about some of Stan Kenton's music (like 'Adventures in Time')?
>
Well, the Third Stream Department at the New England Conservatory in
Boston would today give a different definition than Schuller did in the
50s. For them Third Stream is more of a pedagogical concept than a
musical confluence of two styles. Concept: open your ears to all
"streams", all musical developments in this world! For them every
confluence of different musical worlds represents the idea of "Third
Stream". Ran Blake today runs the Third Stream Department which was
founded by Schuller himself.
Wolfram Knauer
tomb...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
It's what happens when someone pokes your third eye.