Gunter Schuller passed away yesterday (June 21). Horn player, composer, theorist, writer and guiding force behind Thirdstream music - his attempt to fuse jazz and classical music as one.
He was also associated with Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool sessions.
Gunter Schuller was 89. May he Rest In Peace.
Obituary.Lance.
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His books "Early Jazz" and "The Swing Era" - particularly the latter - are absolutely essential reading for jazz enthusiasts. Schuller wrote them from the point of view of a highly skilled musician and listened as extensively as was possible in those pre-internet times to all available original recordings. One can very occasionally find inaccuracies and opinions which one might not agree with, but they are nonetheless a tour de force in the canon of jazz literature, and like the best of the genre, they always send me back to the records to refresh and reinvigorate the jazz muscles! He had intended to write a third volume dealing with modern jazz, but I guess time ran out on him - "The Swing Era" took him twenty-plus years to research and write.
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