The Outer View - George Russell

 

You Are My Sunshine

The Outer View

George Russell

Originally Produced by Orrin Keepnews

Re-mastering Supervised by Bob Thiele

Engineer: Bob Arnold

Cover Design: Media Sales Development / Zaforski

Liner Design: Joe Lebow

Riverside Records RS-3016

1968

Don Ellis - Trumpet

Garnett Brown - Trombone

Paul Plummer - Tenor Sax

George Russel - Piano

Steve Swallow - Bass

Pete La Roca - Drums

Sheila Jordan - Vocal on Your Are My Sunshine

From the back cover: Where Is George Russell?

The last couple of years have seen the triumph of what used to be called the "jazz avant garden" – wrongly, I might add, because rather than the musicians being avant, it was a case of we, the public, being derriere. but call it what you will, it would appear unexceptionable that the new jazz has consolidated a permanent place in American music. Albums by the late John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman are now regular and predictable events. Archie Shepp, I learn from one of the trade magazines, has just renewed his contract with Impulse, an enlightened label, that has also singed Albert Ayler and in recent months presented us with new offerings from the horns of Pharaoh Sanders and Marion Brown.

All of which makes my original question that much more pressing: where is George Russell?

As virtually any of the new musicians will be happy to tell you, Russell's role in formulating this freshest wave of jazz innovation was anything but a small one. In a sense, Russell's career is analogous to that of Gil Evans. It was Evans who did any of the arrangements for the now justly celebrated Miles Davis nonet recordings on Capitol; yet for years, until Davis began using him again in the late fifties, Evans, as the phrase has it, languished in obscurity. It is rewarding to see that Evans was ultimately able to achieve the recognition that his talents so richly deserved. But it is just there that the parallel with George Russell breaks down. For ironically, even while the new music has been gaining ever greater acceptance, Russell himself, far rom attaining fame and fortune, seems to be if possible even a more esoteric figure now than he was earlier in the decade.

Indeed, the last public mention I have seen of the theoretician-composer-pianist was at least two years ago, when "the other music magazine" – let's just call it Down Beat – printed a letter from him that, significantly, had originated in one of the Scandinavian contours. Significantly, because this country, which has always been hard on its creative artists, has see fit to bear down with force when the artist in question has a black skin, as does Russell. So, under the pressure of circumstances no doubt, he expatriated himself from his native land.

As William Burroughs asks throughout his surreal Naked Lunch; "Wouldn't you?" Russell's letter, an unintentionally poignant and moving document, told of "dreary subway trips to Macy's or scrubbing floors or washing dishes in a Harlem, Bronx, or Brooklyn luncheonette" to keep himself alive. "Until last year," he continued, "I held a membership card in Local 1199, Retail Drug Workers' Union of New York" – a statement that few white musicians of any persuasion, jazz or otherwise, could match, despite the oft-operated (but wholly false) assertion that "all artists have the same problems." Even in the jazz world, where the necessity of paying dues is too frequently extolled into a virtue, it would appear that Russell has paid more than he's share; it is time and more than time he began receiving.

It would be pleasant to think that this record, re-appearing in 1968, will help to redress the balance in the composer's favor. Whether such will actually be the case is another matter. If there were any justice, of course, we would not have to labor under doubt. But as the hapless Vietnamese (not to mention an increasing number of Americans) have discovered, justice can become a very scarce commodity at the marketplaces of the world. Well, let us keep our fingers crossed – but not our breath held!

Should re-issuing The Outer View aid in creating a resurgence of interest in George Russell, conceivably we would be given the chance to hear where his head is in 1968. Of one thing, we can be virtually certain: he would do things differently now than he did at the time this album was originally cut. This is not at all to fault Russell's ideas as of 1963. But times do change; and he i one of those rare artists whose creativity is able to evolve with each significant new development. In fact, one of the most praiseworthy aspects of all of Russell's LPs, regardless of label, was the willingness he evidenced to incorporate the contributions of the youngest and most radical innovator. (Remember, you old timers, Coltrane's playing on Russell's New York, N.Y.?)

As it is, this album occupies what I would term a transitional niche between the new-bebop of the late 1950s and the full-blown new music of Coltrane, Coleman, Ayler, Sanders, Cherry, Taylor, Dixon, Shepp, and others. You can demonstrate the transitional nature of the record in any numbers of ways: There is Charlie Parker's Au Privave which juxtaposes the orthodox bebop melodic line against segments of free improvising. There is Carla Bely's Zig-Zag – which is, I understand, also the name of the cigarette paper most often used by veteran joint-rollers – interweaving strains suggestive of Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman. There is Russell's own The Outer View, at times sounding like Miles Davis' Milestones, only to shift gears abruptly into an ensemble style that was to be given much greater currency by, among others, Archie Shepp.

The same traditional character is to be found in the sun total of playing styles of the musicians who comprised the George Russell sextet: at times, neo-bebop; at other times, something beyond. Thus Russell himself ranges the gamut from straight bop piano accompaniment to overtones of Cecil Taylor; Paul Plummer – and what the devil ever became of him, for heaven's sake? – ranges from late '50s Cannonball Adderley through early '60s John Coltrane and even, on occasion, further. And so on. It isn't a difficult game to play; and there's no need for me to take away your pleasure (assuming that puzzle-solving is one of Your Things) by working out all the stylistic lineages and derivations for you.

It is my felling that the very transitional nature of this album is among its strongest points. I remember once carrying on a very heated discussion – you might even say an argument – with a rather arrogant and opinionated youth – a New Yorker, in other words – who had some pretensions to being a writer on jazz. The subject was the playing of the late John Coltrane – this just before his unhappy demise – and our boorish would-be authority was dispensing hi ex cathedra opinion that "guys like Coltrane oughtta do their practicing at home."

Original thought! There are only a few crucial things which this trite bit of Conventional Wisdom overlooks: Coltrane – and his artistic "children," I dare say – did practice at home; tirelessly. In actuality, Coltrane's idea of relaxing was playing the flute, because he could do that while lying down! Secondly, and notwithstanding the existence of phonograph recordings, the essence of jazz involves some manner of interaction between audience and performer; that is how the performer ultimately decide what to incorporate and what to discard. So it is inevitable that new musical ideas ill be introduced in public appearance, regardless of the discomfiture caused to the Philistines therein. And not only is this inevitable, but, thirdly, it is desirable, for the simple reason that the more access we have to the thought of an innovator, the easier it will be for us ultimately to reconstruct the path that that particular artist took in traveling from point A to point B in his career.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I am very happy to be associated with the re-issue of this album. The music contained within it is neither simon-pure bop nor the new music as we currently know it; it is neither fish nor fowl, but something part-way between. Thus, besides being excellent music in its own write (there's John Lennon cropping up again!), it has a good deal to tell us about the evolution of jazz from Cannonball Adderley to Albert Ayler. That strike me as indeed a significant and worthwhile accomplishment.

NOTE: The vocal on You Are My Sunshine is by Shelia Jordan. According to the original liner notes for this album, by Joe Goldberg: "The arrangement had its genesis when Russell and Miss Jordan were singing and playing for their own amusement in a small tavern in her home area, the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. Someone at the bar asked to hear You Are My Sunshine ('It' really a folk song there,' Russell says, 'a drinking song'), and Russell began to experiment with it. The resulting treatment mirrors his impression of the people pitted against the cold, bleak, often brutal demands of the region..." – Frank Kofsky, Contributing Editor Jazz & Pop Magazine

Au Privave

Zig-Zag

The Outer View

You Are My Sunshine

D.C. Divertimento