George Russell

While in the car on Tuesday, I heard a tribute to the late musician, George Russell. I'm embarrassed to admit, I had never heard of George Russell before Tuesday, but, I learned that he was a great jazz innovator and composer. This is from Russell's obituary in the Boston Globe:

George Russell, a composer, longtime teacher at the New England Conservatory, and theoretician whose ideas created the foundation for such seminal jazz works as Miles Davis’s "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme," died Monday in Boston of complications from Alzheimer’s, according to the Associated Press. He was 86.

Considered one of the most creative innovators and profound thinkers in the history of jazz, Mr. Russell wrote "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization" in 1953. The treatise, esoteric in title and ground-shifting in effect, eventually transformed the manner many jazz musicians approached their work.

We have both of the seminal jazz works, mentioned above, in our collection:

Coltrane, John. A Love Supreme. [CD JAZZ COL]


Davis, Miles. Kind of Blue. [CD JAZZ DAV]

Being totally clueless about "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization," I did a little searching and found that there is a whole website devoted to it and George Russell!