Russell George Allan, *23 June 1923 Cincinnati, †27 June 2009 Boston, American composer, arranger, jazz theorist, pianist, and jazz drummer. As a teenager, he played drums in jazz clubs in Cincinnati. In the mid-1940s, he received a scholarship to Wilberforce University; during his studies, he was a member of the university band, the Collegians. After a year, he interrupted his studies due to tuberculosis; during his stay in hospital (1945–46), he learned the basics of harmony and arrangement; he also began work on his treatise The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation (published in New York in 1953, 2nd edition in 1959). In the second half of the 1940s, he returned to active music-making, composing and writing arrangements for D. Gillespie (Cubano Be/Cubano Bop), C. Thornhill, A. Shaw, B. De Franco (A Bird in Igor’s Yard) and L. Konitz (Ezzthetics, Odjenar); at that time, he took composition lessons from S. Wolpe. In 1956, he formed his own sextet (with A. Farmer and B. Evans, among others), with whom he recorded his album The Jazz Workshop (1956). In 1958–59, he taught jazz courses in Lenox, Massachusetts, during which he lectured on the principles formulated in The Lydian Chromatic Concept. At that time, he composed intensively (including All about Rosie, 1957; New York, NY, 1959) and recorded (albums: Jazz in the Space Age, 1960; At the Five Spot, 1960; In Kansas City, 1960; Stratusphunk, 1960; Ezz-Thetics, 1961; The Outer View, 1962); Russell’s recording sessions featured J. Coltrane, E. Dolphy, M. Roach, B. Evans, D. Ellis, among others. In 1963, he left for Scandinavia, where he lectured at universities in Lund (Sweden) and Vaskilde (Denmark); his students included J. Garbarek, T. Rypdal, P. Mikkelborg, and J. Christensen. In 1969, without severing his ties with Scandinavia, he returned to the United States to take up a position as a lecturer at the New England Conservatory in Boston. In 1972, he recorded the album Living Time, and in the mid-1970s he worked on the second part of The Lydian Chromatic Concept, composing and recording with the big band of Swedish Radio. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was active in New York, conducting his own orchestras (albums: New York Big Band, 1982; The African Game, 1983; So What, 1986), toured the United Kingdom and recorded the albums The London Concert (1990) and It’s About Time (1997). He has received numerous awards and honours for his achievements, including the American National Music Award.
Russell was one of the most innovative, though not fully appreciated, artists of modern jazz. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of the main reformers of musical language. He advocated moving away from the major-minor system in favour of modal scales and tonal freedom, abandoning melodic-harmonic patterns, and giving up improvisation based on the harmonic structure of the theme. His views were directly reflected in his compositions. They show great diversity in terms of form and means – from short pieces for chamber ensembles with extensive arranged parts (including Ezz-Thetic, Concerto for Billy the Kid) through elaborate suites for jazz orchestra (Othello Ballet Suite, Vertical Form VI) to experimental works (including Listen to the Silence, Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature) with bold combinations of acoustic and electronic sounds and references to the styles and compositional techniques of 20th-century music (Stravinsky, dodecaphony, aleatoric, sonorism). Russell was a pioneer in the field of jazz theory. In his work The Lydian Chromatic Concept, aimed at musicians, composers, and students, he comprehensively addressed issues related to tonality and harmony. The complex structure, some terminological ambiguities and the hermetic language of the treatise limited its reach, but the main ideas contained therein had a strong influence on the music of M. Davis, J. Coltrane, E. Dolphy, C. Bley, J. Garbarek, T. Rypdal and many others. Russell’s work was the first serious contribution to jazz theory, and the concepts formulated in it contributed to the emergence of modal jazz and, indirectly, to the development of free jazz and the Third Stream. Russell, alongside G. Evans, is considered a leading arranger who was able to fully exploit the sonic potential of both modern big bands and smaller ensembles.
Literature: M. Harrison George Russell, in: Jazz on Record. A Critical Guide to the First 50 Years, 1917–1967, ed. A. McCarthy et al., London 1968.
