MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Critical biography of a neglected jazz genius
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Stratusphunk: George Russell, His Life and Music
by Duncan Heining Jazz Internationale, £14.99
THE great Wolverhampton-born bassist Dave Holland said of Russell: “He’s done something which a lot of musicians aspire to, which is to create a world of his own within the music.” Yet this world was never an introspective one or enclosed behind musical walls.
As a young man in New York, Russell knew and worked with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Mingus. The knowledge which formed the foundation of his genuinely influential theoretical work, the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation, was based on active exposure to such jazz revolutionaries.
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