R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

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mhschmieder
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R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by mhschmieder »

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptiveca ... dies-at-89

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jazz ... 340669.php

Surprised this didn't get posted yet. I've been too busy to start the topic, and don't really have time to put many details right now, but since my brother's in charge of the official obit and commemorative, I can start adding links as he sends them to me.

Gunther Schuller was 89 when he passed away this week -- very close to his 90th birthday. Planned birthday-related events are now being converted to tributes/commemoratives. His son George, who is a bassist, was performing in Europe at the time of his father's death, but I think he may be back now as he is going to be playing a big role in the events.

We can all be happy he lived such a long life and touched so many with his generosity, warmth, musicality, and gifts for teaching and for "running the show". Well-loved by faculty, alumni, Tanglewood Festival attendees and participants, and musicians everywhere, he is probably best known around the world for his still-standard texts on playing the orchestral horn and on early jazz (I have the latter book in my own collection).

It is hard to imagine the music of the last 70 years without Gunther. Would someone else have come along to challenge the conventions and make it OK to meld jazz with classical, to embrace both modern and traditional or older music at the same time, and basically to acknowledge that one should choose their own path and go where their heart tells them to musically? Probably, but maybe not with such conviction or bravery in challenging institutions in how they look at music and what is considered "legitimate".

Certainly his biggest inspiration in this regard was Duke Ellington, but what Schuller did was challenge the institutions themselves. New England Conservatory was the first music school to take jazz seriously, but now it is taken for granted. Together with David Baker (who I had the privilege of briefly studying under while at Indiana University School of Music), he broke down a lot of barriers in education and in performing arts organizations about what "can" be played and "how" it can be played.

Here's an example my brother posted today, from 2010, of Gunther's jazz re-imagining of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf:

https://soundcloud.com/necmusic/prokofi ... d-the-wolf

Gunther Schuller had a huge influence on me from a very early age. Possibly more so than any single musician I can think of, in terms of people who influenced how I approach music and what choices I made in my own musical direction.

My brother is Director of Communications at New England Conservatory, so I've had opportunities to participate in events there during my annual east coast visits, and it is truly remarkable what a lasting legacy Schuller left behind, even decades after he resigned as head of the school. Few institutions would manage to retain a "founding vision" for so long.
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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by wdegillio »

I'm sorry to hear this.
Here's a video to look for (if you haven't already seen it). It's on the DVD set of a selection of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. On the episode that was broadcast March 11, 1964, "Jazz In the Concert Hall", Bernstein brings out a young Gunther to conduct his composition "Journey Into Jazz", in which Bernstein acts as the narrator.. He mentions that Mr. Schuller (Gunther's father!) currently plays in the Philharmonic. Several of the hot NYC jazz cats (including Don Ellis and Eric Dolphy!) are featured soloists in his piece. If that's not enough, Aaron Copland is the soloist for a performance of his "Concerto for Piano & Orchestra". I wonder if any of the young people in the audience for that concert had any idea of the musical talent on that stage!
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Phil O
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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by Phil O »

A friend of mine was a long time friend of Mr. Schuller. I don't know if he's heard the news. Guess I'll have to let him know. :(

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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by tlockett »

Thanks for this post RIP Gunther
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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by Shooshie »

I didn't know him, but I knew a lot of people who did. They all described him as a profound influence in their musical lives, and sometimes their personal lives as well. Through them, I felt his influence even way out here in Texas. May he rest in exalted peace.

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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by mhschmieder »

Shooshie, did you ever know David Baker during his long stint in Texas, before he moved to Indiana (my alma mater) to start up their revolutionary Jazz Studies department on the heels of the similar work he had done at Texas A&M (or was it University of Texas)?

He and Gunther Schuller were friends and collaborators and had a similar vision. So if you ever ran into David Baker, you shared some of Gunther's soul through him.

Gunther was a great orchestral horn player and features on Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool".

David Baker was a trombonist before health issues (I no longer remember whether it was lip cancer or something else), after which he switched to upright bass.

A lot of people have come along since then to push the Third Stream movement forward (most notably, pianist Uri Caine, who has reimagined Mahler as New Orleans Jazz, amongst other innovations), but Baker and Schuller were the main spearheads.
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Re: R.I.P. Gunther Schuller

Post by Shooshie »

mhschmieder wrote:Shooshie, did you ever know David Baker during his long stint in Texas, before he moved to Indiana (my alma mater) to start up their revolutionary Jazz Studies department on the heels of the similar work he had done at Texas A&M (or was it University of Texas)?

He and Gunther Schuller were friends and collaborators and had a similar vision. So if you ever ran into David Baker, you shared some of Gunther's soul through him.

Gunther was a great orchestral horn player and features on Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool".

David Baker was a trombonist before health issues (I no longer remember whether it was lip cancer or something else), after which he switched to upright bass.

A lot of people have come along since then to push the Third Stream movement forward (most notably, pianist Uri Caine, who has reimagined Mahler as New Orleans Jazz, amongst other innovations), but Baker and Schuller were the main spearheads.

No, I never met Baker. I have some of his books, and used to practice out of them. But I was just never in his vicinity.

Well, one by one these people join the ranks of all our other musical heroes: bronze busts on a bookshelf. They are the dead, but through music we continue to listen to them, learn from them, study them, and produce things which become our contribution to the dialog. Someday we all end up on a bookshelf: bronze bust, urn of ashes, or book of etudes.

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