S/D: "Third Stream" Jazz

Get it if you don't have it!

I've also heard Eddie Daniels' Breakthrough, which is nominated 'the essential third stream album' et al. by allmusic.com, and it is a pleasant album with some virtuoso clarinet playing. It took me a while to track that one down and I suppose I was a bit let down when I first heard it, though I'm not sure what I was expecting. There are a few good tracks on there, but on the whole the disc is fairly subdued.

"It was too close of an examination of the artistic process," Rollins recalled. "It made me think too much about what I was doing. When I'm playing, I don't want to think. I want to be on a 'beyond' level."

http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000002ADQ.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1115743790_.jpg

...but it's always left me kinda cold. Gil Evans I love, but is he really considered Third Stream?

WKCR's Phil Schaap does a similar kind of analysis of Charlie Parker on his show though and it's enough to make me want to JUMP OFF of a bridge.

I've found that true of all the Third Stream I've heard (mostly as a once-in-a-blue-moon album-side curio on WKCR); it's all certainly interesting, but one or two listens are enough for me. I think the only TS stuff I own are the John Lewis and Gunther Schuller items that are included in the Ornette Beauty is a Rare Thing box set, drawn from the Lewis/Schuller LP Jazz Abstractions, from 1961. I usually skip those parts of the box set.

I tend to associate George Russell with his small-group recordings, but if he did any Third Stream stuff, that's a definite Search, site-unseen — he's a small-A academic (and a former drummer, IIRC), so there's likely to be more blood-and-guts to what he does than the Schuller-related musics.

I have only vague memories of the TS works done by a couple of Mingus sidemen, Teo Macero and John LaPorta; they might be worth a Search, just because of the Mingus connection.

I would argue that the melding of (avant-garde) classical and jazz didn't really work until the days of the first wave of AACM musicians — e.g. Muhal, Braxton, Roscoe. They just quietly folded it into their individual conceptions of composition and improvisation, rather than try to package it with a brand name and concert-hall aspirations.

[And Hurting, the Rollins/bridge story was also used in a TV commercial in the 70's (for Memorex, or some stereo manufacturer, I think); they had him re-enacting his late-night woodshedding.]

Is the George Russell portion of The Birth of the Third Stream in the "leaves me kinda cold" category as well?

I know Phil Schaap can be long of wind, but — and this is in reference to m coleman's Gil Evans question — I have to give Professor Schaap his props, because I'm (half-)remembering this from one of his half-hour KCR monologues.

Mingus' "Jazz Workshop" of the 50's (which included Macero and LaPorta as members/sidemen) was originally patterned after the collective of composers/players/arrangers that produced Miles' late-40's 78s that were later collected in the Birth of the Cool releases.

Evans isn't really Third Stream, but like other Birth of the Cool folks like Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi, he became known for his jazz arranging/composing skills after the shrinking of the market for working big bands (which prompted the need to create this DIY collective). i.e. Mingus, Evans, and the others mentioned above are part of a different "stream" (between mainstream and Third Stream, but usually closer to the former) than the course Schuller eventually took.

Search also: City of Glass, a compilation of works by Bob Graettinger for Stan Kenton's (still-working) big band, roughly in the same timeframe as Birth of the Cool. [Same label at the time as well — Capitol.] Kenton's "progressive jazz" was a precursor, of sorts, to Third Stream.

Current faves:

(1964) George Gruntz - Jazz Goes Baroque
(1975) Claude Bolling & Jean-Pierre Rampal - Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio
(1998) Rino Vernizzi Quartet - Play Bach & Paganini
(1999) Leszek Możdżer - Impressions of Chopin

Just downloaded:

(1993) Enrio Rava - Rava, L'Opera Va

So far, rather nice.

Oh, and really into Chico Hamilton Quintet right now. The Complete Pacific Recordings is worth it, but the true highlight is Zen: The Music of Fred Katz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJejBBZi98
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msONIqbNvvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flheKpgbu0E

Nice to see you round here poppa...

I always meant to check out third stream stuff

Dug those youtubes...

Best part about this stuff is its so unhip I bet I can find tons of nice stuff in the dollar bin vinyl

Thank you!

Not sure why I'm on a serious Third Stream binge right now, but I really am.

The Classical Jazz Quartet is another I'm indulging in. 2000s band with Ron Carter on bass, in the vein of MJQ.
I've dug up 3 albums of theirs (Plays Bach, Plays Rachmaninoff, and a decent diversion of Nutcraker).

About to check out some Eugen Cicero.

Ron Carter apparently loves the MJQ, I think he calls his group with Russell Malone and Mulgrew Miller The Golden Striker Trio after a John Lewis tune. I guess it makes sense given that he started out in classical music

I just discovered Joel Harrison via "The Wheel". Kinda blown away.

Youtube offers a little insight into his Jazzy minimalism.

Anyone else a fan?

http://youtu.be/WdkJNAYVBAc

I don't know if I quite understand this stuff. I seem to be blundering towards it via Lalo Schifrin (who is tbh probably less Serious and more corny but quite fun) and Joe Zawinul's Rise and Fall of the Third Stream, which is pretty sublime but feels like it errs more on the side of jazz.

Oh and the Graettinger/Kenton stuff is very cool. I actually bought a book on West Coast jazz just because it had a chapter on Graettinger, he was a uh... interesting guy.

I really, really like this Patrick Zimmerli record that just came out, feels like jazz but mostly composed in a prog/classical type way. Doesn't sound like something I would like on paper but it's a great band and very approachable & interesting at the same time.

The original City of Glass LP was mentioned by novelist Robert Stone as something that he and Kesey and their pre-Pranksters crew used to trip to when they were at Stanford, and The Complete City of Glass CD has long had me seeing noir skyscrapers ov phosphorescence and so on, even though I'm just high on life. The aforementioned Birth of the Third Stream (OOP) CD, which is all of Music For Brass and most of Modern Jazz Concert LPs, seems like a good intro for the most part, although somehow I've never gone on to listen to a whole Schuller album and never been that into JJ Johnson as a leader or composer, although he does have Miles playing his stuff here, which helps.
most detailed credits I've seen online(my copy of the CD is somewhere):
https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Birth-Of-The-Third-Stream/release/4248791

I've also got this double-LP collection (with more music than the CD edition) of Gil's arrangements for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra: the expected twilight, sometimes smoggy, but with activity---Lee Konitz plays on several tracks---for choosy supper club customers, kind of pre-Eno:
https://www.discogs.com/Claude-Thornhill-Tapestries/release/11401907

Another Evans-Thornhill collection is The Real Birth of the Cool, with at least some of these same tracks, don't have that one.

xpost City of Glass is the Graettinger/Kenton cited by Gott Punch above. GP thanx for mention of that book, would def like to more about Bob G., incl. any other works that might be findable.