They Do More Than Keep The Flame
NEC observes Gunther Schuller’s centennial all week
New England Conservatory will honor the centennial of its legendary former president, Gunther Schuller, all week. (photo courtesy New England Conservatory)
In any communal human endeavor, there are those whom we call keepers of the flame. They maintain its heat, its amount of fuel, they tell the stories about it that have been passed down through the ages.
Then there are those for whom the term “keeper” isn’t quite adequate. Their stewardship adds something extra, something often hard to describe but easy to recognize, like a momentary flash of green in among the usual blue and yellow of the fire and soft orange of the coals. And in the field of jazz – though the word itself is inadequate to describe their contributions – the late Gunther Schuller and the still very active Ran Blake certainly qualify as belonging to that latter group.
The New England Conservatory is celebrating Schuller’s legacy all this week with Jumpin’ In The Future: The Legacy of Gunther Schuller. The week’s events include free concerts and commentary from NEC students and faculty, including Ran, chairman emeritus of NEC’s Contemporary Musical Arts program.
Gunther, who died in 2015, was a Renaissance man’s Renaissance man. He was a classical French horn player, jazz player (he played on Miles Davis’s era-shaping Birth of the Cool), composer, conductor, and scholar. He served as president of NEC from 1967-77, where he formalized the first degree-granting jazz program at a major classical conservatory in 1969. Shortly thereafter, he instituted the Third Stream department, subsequently named the Contemporary Improvisation Department and now Contemporary Musical Arts, to explore where the two musical “streams” of classical and jazz meet (he coined the term “Third Stream” during a lecture he gave at Brandeis University in 1957). He hired Ran to be the department’s chair.
Both men were and have been recognized as being at the apex of the profession by their musical peers: both were recipients of MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” They were also both Guggenheim Fellows. Gunther won both the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy awards.
But all these things are easy for anybody to look up. When I started pondering how to write this essay, I mentioned to the associate publisher that I didn’t know how many 8495Jazz readers had ever heard of Gunther, to which she replied that even if they had not, they were by definition of reading it intelligent and interested people for whom a made connection could be made even better with a little more knowledge – or who are fully capable of making that better connection themselves.
And making connections out of things that may not be so obvious is the whole point of Third Stream musical scholarship. It requires, first off, an innate sense of curiosity. And it entails a whole lot of listening, which Ran told 8495Jazz is sorely lacking in a music education system dominated by teaching the reading of sheet music and playing corresponding notes.
“High schools don’t teach that,” he said. “They teach it’s very important for Sarah and Johnny to play bassoon or violin or trumpet and be in the marching band. It’s do, do, do.”
One of Ran’s former students at NEC, Jared Sims, is currently the director of jazz studies at Milton Academy, a prep school in suburban Boston, and has also served as jazz studies director at the university level.
“I’ve taught at several universities, and the typical scenario you get at the university level is students who are already programmed to think they sit in a chair and the teacher gives them a piece of music and counts off, tells them everything to do,” Jared said. “It’s so much eye-based.”
But Jared teaches his students primarily by ear, as Ran teaches: “These guys at Milton, they’re Ivy League level, so if they can’t read music, I’m sure they will if they need to learn how.”
Beyond the physical fundamentals of ear training, Jared mentioned that added ingredient of curiosity and melding aural concepts that may not be so obvious as something else he picked up from Ran (for a deeper dive into how a professional musician interprets Ran Blake’s work, you can read Jared’s Substack essay here).
“Ran doesn’t have bounds to his music,” Jared said. “The bounds are just simply his interests. It’s an interesting thing because I oversee a jazz program, and there’s a connotation that jazz is in a box and it’s one thing. And the sound bite I give is I am not trying to train the musicians for 1959.”
In fact, Ran and Jared just released an album called Night Harbor, and it highlights music as diverse as popular music from the early 20th century (“Poor Butterfly”), classic Broadway (“Almost Like being In Love” from Brigadoon), obscure film noir – one of Ran’s favorite subjects (“Dr. Mabuse”), and one of Ran’s compositions, “The Short Life of Barbara Monk” (Ran knew Thelonious Monk and his family well).
To a passionate if non-professional music fan, the album summons a loose connection/contrast with Gerry Mulligan’s Night Lights. Both Jared and Gerry Mulligan play baritone sax on the respective albums, and the album covers carry an early 60’s visual similarity (Night Harbor’s cover was a painting by Jared’s grandmother at about that time), though Jared never intended for that connection to be made. But there is also another connection between Ran and upcoming jazz musicians in the region - among Jared’s students is guitarist Griffin Kelleher, whom 8495Jazz readers might remember reading about.
And of course, in the end, we all get to define and defend our own connections, most comfortably and credibly if we have done a little bit of work in making them. One I carried into the research for this was a possible connection between Ran and Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the founders of Steely Dan. Ran’s legend includes being the first student in the history of Bard College to major in jazz, and Becker and Fagen met on the college’s bucolic Hudson Valley campus 10 years later.
So, I wondered, had not Ran Blake ever pioneered jazz studies at Bard, would we ever have come to be the beneficiaries of Steely Dan’s jazz/rock gifts to pop culture? But Ran said he did not know Steely Dan.
But there is a sort of connection, after all. According to French scholar Guy Ducornet, who was at Bard on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1959, Ran played the piano for his senior project at that fall’s jazz festival (which also featured Ran’s future singing partner, another Bard student named Jeanne Lee.)
“...and I played the alto saxophone!!!” Guy wrote.
Guy was invited back to Bard to join the faculty, and he eventually married Erica DeGre, the daughter of another Bard professor. She is better known as Rikki Ducornet.
Yes, that Rikki, of “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number.”
So I guess, for me, anyway, Third Stream is about more than the music alone. It’s about the people and the stories around them. But it’s the music, combining elements not typically joined together, that makes pondering those new connections and perceptions possible. You don’t have to be a professional. You don’t have to know music theory. You just have to be as open as you are willing to be to soak it in.
Listen for it. Listen to it. Make it your own.
Ran Blake, chairman emeritus of the New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Musical Arts program, and one of his former students, Jared Sims, director of jazz studies at Milton Academy, have just released a duet album, featuring their interpretations of numerous eras and genres of music.
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
We are slightly tweaking the gigs listings; we’ll now go out to the Sunday following publication. That will give you a full week instead of a couple hours to ponder whether you would like to go listen to some fine music.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gig of the Week
Milton Congregational Church, Milton, CT
The Conn Artists (a capella), presented by Litchfield Performaing Arts and Milton Music, Sunday, Nov. 23, 4 pm. GA $25.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
UConn Jazz Ensembles , 6 pm. GA $15.
Other Shows This Week
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
Instantiations (combo improvisation), Sunday, Nov. 23, 2:30 pm. GA $16.50 including service fee.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
Miki Hayama feat. Matt Wilson and Harvie S. (piano, combo), Thursday, Nov. 20, 7:30 and 8:35 pm. GA $10.76-$20.76, student/vets $15.76 for 7:30 show.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA
Groton Hill Jazz Faculty Showcase (combo), Wednesday, Nov. 19, 12 pm. Free.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
Gregory Groover Jr. “Old Knew” album release show (sax, combo), Friday, Nov. 21, 7:30 pm. GA $41.79, students $30.15 including service fee.
The Falcon, Marlboro, NY
Bridge Arts Jazz Concert (community youth and adult orchestras and lab band), Sunday, Nov. 23, 1 pm.
Peter Furlan Project album release show (sax, combo), Sunday, Nov. 23, 7:30 pm.
Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT
Jon Irabagon Quintet feat. Peter Evans (sax, combo), Friday, Nov. 21, 8:30 and 10 pm. GA $20 for 8:30 show, $15 for 10 pm show.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Sean Nelson Jazz Orchestra Tribute to Harry James feat. Joshua Kauffman, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 7:30 pm. GA $38.57, students $22.68 including service fee.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
John Lee’s Big Gutbucket (combo), today, 5 pm. GA $10.
Pump House Music Works, South Kingstown, RI
The URI Jazz Professors (combo), today, 7 pm. $23.18 including service fee.
Elicit Brewing Co., Manchester, CT
Hartford Jazz Orchestra, Monday, Nov. 17, 7:30 pm. Free.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, 3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Park City Music Hall, Bridgeport, CT
Scott Cushman and Friends followed by jam, first Wednesday of the month.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
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