{"title":"George Russell","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eGeorge Russell never set out to be a bandleader. He spent the mid 1940s in and out of hospital with tuberculosis, and it was during one of those stays that he began working out the ideas that became \"The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization\", a self published 1953 theory of harmony built from jazz rather than imposed on it from European classical tradition. The book reframed how musicians thought about scales and chords, and its influence ran straight through to \"Kind of Blue\": Bill Evans absorbed Russell's thinking directly, and Miles Davis built an entire modal language on ground Russell had already mapped. Russell's own recordings as a leader are where the theory becomes audible. \"New York, N.Y.\" (Decca, 1959) and \"Jazz in the Space Age\" (Decca, 1960) put his orchestral writing on record with Evans, Bill Evans, Paul Bley and a young John Coltrane passing through the personnel. His Riverside sextet years that followed, particularly \"Stratusphunk\" (1960) and \"Ezz-thetics\" (1961), with Eric Dolphy, are the records most collectors come looking for first. He later relocated to Scandinavia and then to a long teaching post at the New England Conservatory, but it's this late 1950s and early 1960s run that defines what's stocked here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"george-russell-sextet-ezz-thetics-japanese-riverside-vinyl-lp","title":"George Russell Sextet - Ezz-thetics (Japanese Riverside Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eVinyl\u003c\/b\u003e:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eEX\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSleeve\u003c\/b\u003e:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eVG+ (hole punch)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eObi:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur grading system explained \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/dpbg4u-d1.myshopify.com\/pages\/secondhand-grading-guide\"\u003e\u003cb\u003ehere\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003cbr\u003ePhoto is of the actual item.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGeorge Russell Sextet - \u003cem\u003eEzz-thetics\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP - Japanese Riverside Records Stereo (SR-7058)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRussell published \u003cem\u003eThe Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization\u003c\/em\u003e in 1953, proposing that improvisers think in terms of scales rather than chord changes. The ideas went directly into Miles Davis's \u003cem\u003eKind of Blue\u003c\/em\u003e and John Coltrane's modal explorations, but Russell didn't form his own working sextet until 1960. He assembled the group from musicians he had taught at the Lenox School of Music in Massachusetts, adding Don Ellis on trumpet and Steve Swallow on bass by recommendation. Eric Dolphy was a one-time addition: he heard the sextet at the Five Spot, visited Russell to discuss their shared interest in extended harmonic possibilities, and agreed to record. On May 8, 1961, the group went into Plaza Sound Studios and cut six tracks. \"Ezz-thetic\" opens the album, a Russell composition originally recorded in 1950, built on the chord changes of Cole Porter's \"Love for Sale\" and played here as a circuitous, angular theme with spiralling horn lines. \"Nardis,\" the Miles Davis piece Davis gave to Bill Evans, gets a spare, haunting reading with Dolphy on bass clarinet. \"Lydiot\" (Russell's pun on \"Lydian\" and \"idiot\") has Russell's piano at its most Monk-like, angular and percussive. Dave Baker's \"Honesty\" swings hard and bluesy despite the advanced harmonic framework around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBaker was playing with a dislocated jaw. This session was his last recording on trombone; he had surgery shortly after and switched to cello, going on to become one of the most influential jazz educators in American history. Swallow, credited as Stephen Swallow on the pressing, was making his first major recording appearance. Dolphy plays alto on four tracks and bass clarinet on \"Nardis\" and \"Thoughts.\" Russell's piano stays spare throughout, never crowding the horns, and Joe Hunt's drumming is responsive and alert. Orrin Keepnews produced for Riverside, with Ray Fowler engineering. This is the Japanese stereo pressing on Riverside SR-7058. The release date is not known but likely 1962 or 1963; the flip-back cover and SR catalogue prefix places it in the early-to-mid 1960s, contemporary with other Japanese Riverside pressings in the series.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Riverside","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43691902861371,"sku":null,"price":60.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/IMG_7443.jpg?v=1782108073"}],"url":"https:\/\/lushliferecords.com.au\/collections\/george-russell.oembed","provider":"Lush Life Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}