William Russo (musician)
Encyclopedia
William Russo, better known as Bill Russo (June 25, 1928 – January 11, 2003), was an American jazz
musician
. He is considered one of the greatest jazz composer
s and arrangers
.
, Russo wrote ground-breaking orchestral scores for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the 1950s, including 23 Degrees N 82 Degrees W, Frank Speaking, and Portrait of a Count. One of the more famous works he wrote for the Kenton Orchestra is Halls Of Brass, specially composed for the brass
section, without woodwinds or percussion. The section recording this piece, featured such jazz artists as Buddy Childers
, Maynard Ferguson
and Milt Bernhart
, was much-respected by symphony brass musicians.
At the beginning of the 1960s Russo moved to England, where he founded the London Jazz Orchestra. He was a contributor to the Third Stream
movement that sought to close the gap between jazz and classical music. He returned to his native city of Chicago
in 1965, where he founded Columbia College
's music department and became the director of its Center for New Music, as well as the college's first full-time faculty member. He was also the Director of Orchestral Studies at Scuola Europea d’Orchestra Jazz in Palermo
, Italy
.
Besides writing for jazz ensembles, Russo also composed classical music, including symphonies, and choral works, as well as a number of works for the theater, often mixing elements of different genres. His 1959 Symphony No. 2 in C (TITANS) received a Koussevitsky award, and marked his entrance into the classical-music world. It was performed by the New York Philharmonic
that year with Leonard Bernstein
conducting (Bernstein had commissioned the piece) and trumpeter Maynard Ferguson appearing as soloist.
The 1973 album that included Russo's Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra
became a big seller for Deutsche Grammophon
, with its cross-genre performance by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with Seiji Ozawa
conducting and the Siegel-Schwall Band
. (Ozawa had premiered "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
and the Siegel-Schwall Band in 1968.) The success prompted the label to release Russo's Street Music, A Blues Concerto in 1979, featuring Corky Siegel
on harmonica
and piano
.
Russo's music-theater works included a rock cantata, The Civil War (1968), based on poems by Paul Horgan
. A politically charged multimedia piece for soloist, chorus, dancers, and rock band, The Civil War paralleled the American Civil War and the martyrdom of President Lincoln with the turbulent civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Russo followed The Civil War with other rock-based multimedia music-theater works including Liberation, Joan of Arc, Aesop's Fables, The Bacchae, and Song of Songs. These and other works were performed by the Chicago Free Theater, which Russo founded and directed. One of the seminal troupes of the off-Loop theater movement that blossomed in Chicago in the late 1960s, the Free Theater spawned sister companies in Baltimore and San Francisco.
In 1969, Russo teamed up with director Paul Sills
and community activist Rev. Jim Shiflett to establish the Body Politic Theatre, one of the first professional off-Loop theaters in Chicago. Russo's other works for the theater include the operas John Hooton (1962), The Island (1963), Land of Milk and Honey (1964), Antigone (1967), The Shepherds' Christmas, The Pay-Off (1983–84), The Sacrifice, and Dubrovsky (1988), as well as a double bill of operas inspired by commedia dell'arte, Isabella's Fortune and Pedrolino's Revenge (performed off-Broadway in 1974), and a musical fairy tale for children, The Golden Bird, for singers, narrator, dancers, and symphony orchestra (premiered in 1984 under the auspices of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). His collaborators on these and other works for the theater included Adrian Mitchell, Arnold Weinstein, Jon Swan, Alice Albright Hoge, Irma Routen, Naomi Lazard, Robert Perrey, Donald T. Sanders, Albert Williams, Jonathan Abarbanel, and Denise DeClue. Russo also composed art songs set to poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay
, W.H. Auden, and Gertrude Stein
, as well as scores for dance and film.
As part of his work with Columbia College, he started the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, which was dedicated to preserving and expanding jazz. However a few years later this ensemble was disbanded, but was fully reborn in 1991 and continues to this day; Russo's successor as the CJE's artistic director was trumpeter Jon Faddis. Russo appeared with the band in the week before his death. After a bout with cancer, Russo retired as chair of the Columbia College Music Department in 2002. He died in 2003.
Russo's first wife, country/Western singer Shelby Davis, died at the age of 83 on April 20, 2010. He was also married to music teacher Jeremy Warburg and classical soprano Carol Lo Verde. His son, Alexander Russo
, is a writer and author.
and composition teacher. Among his notable pupils were John Barry
, Richard Peaslee
, Fred Karlin
, Patrick Gowers
, Joseph Reiser, Albert Williams, Louis Rosen, and Mark Hollmann
.
In addition to composing, arranging, conducting, playing, and teaching, he also authored three respected books on music: Composing for the Jazz Orchestra (1973, University of Chicago Press, plus a workbook for the book in 1978); Jazz Composition and Orchestration (1968, 1974, pbk 1997, University of Chicago Press); and Composing Music: A New Approach, written with Jeffrey Ainis and David Stevenson, Russo's former students (1983, Prentice Hall; 1988, University of Chicago Press).
Overall, Russo composed more than 200 pieces for jazz orchestra, and there were more than 30 recordings of his work. His five-decade career included collaborations with his idol Duke Ellington
, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Stan Kenton, Cannonball Adderley, Yehudi Menuhin
, Dizzy Gillespie
, Benny Carter, Maynard Ferguson, Billie Holiday
, Cleo Laine, Annie Ross, and others.
In 1990, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that presents the Grammy Awards.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
. He is considered one of the greatest jazz composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s and arrangers
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
.
History
A former student of the jazz pianist Lennie TristanoLennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...
, Russo wrote ground-breaking orchestral scores for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the 1950s, including 23 Degrees N 82 Degrees W, Frank Speaking, and Portrait of a Count. One of the more famous works he wrote for the Kenton Orchestra is Halls Of Brass, specially composed for the brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
section, without woodwinds or percussion. The section recording this piece, featured such jazz artists as Buddy Childers
Buddy Childers
Marion "Buddy" Childers became famous in 1942 at the age of 16, when Stan Kenton hired him to be the lead trumpet in his band.As Childers later told Steve Voce:...
, Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...
and Milt Bernhart
Milt Bernhart
Milt Bernhart was a West Coast jazz trombonist who worked with Stan Kenton, Frank Sinatra, and others...
, was much-respected by symphony brass musicians.
At the beginning of the 1960s Russo moved to England, where he founded the London Jazz Orchestra. He was a contributor to the Third Stream
Third stream
Third Stream is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller, within a lecture at Brandeis University, to describe a musical genre which is a synthesis of classical music and jazz...
movement that sought to close the gap between jazz and classical music. He returned to his native city of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1965, where he founded Columbia College
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs...
's music department and became the director of its Center for New Music, as well as the college's first full-time faculty member. He was also the Director of Orchestral Studies at Scuola Europea d’Orchestra Jazz in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Besides writing for jazz ensembles, Russo also composed classical music, including symphonies, and choral works, as well as a number of works for the theater, often mixing elements of different genres. His 1959 Symphony No. 2 in C (TITANS) received a Koussevitsky award, and marked his entrance into the classical-music world. It was performed by the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
that year with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
conducting (Bernstein had commissioned the piece) and trumpeter Maynard Ferguson appearing as soloist.
The 1973 album that included Russo's Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra
Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra
Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra is an avant-garde musical composition written by William Russo in 1968. It combines classical music played by an orchestra with blues music played by a four-piece band....
became a big seller for Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
, with its cross-genre performance by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with Seiji Ozawa
Seiji Ozawa
is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
conducting and the Siegel-Schwall Band
Siegel-Schwall Band
The Siegel–Schwall Band is an American electric blues band from Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1964 by Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall , and still tours occasionally.-History:...
. (Ozawa had premiered "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
and the Siegel-Schwall Band in 1968.) The success prompted the label to release Russo's Street Music, A Blues Concerto in 1979, featuring Corky Siegel
Corky Siegel
Mark Paul "Corky" Siegel is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. He plays harmonica and piano. He plays and writes blues and blues-rock music, and has also worked extensively on combining blues and classical music...
on harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
Russo's music-theater works included a rock cantata, The Civil War (1968), based on poems by Paul Horgan
Paul Horgan
Paul Horgan was an American author of fiction and non-fiction, most of which was set in the Southwestern United States. He was the recipient of two Pulitzer prizes in History...
. A politically charged multimedia piece for soloist, chorus, dancers, and rock band, The Civil War paralleled the American Civil War and the martyrdom of President Lincoln with the turbulent civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Russo followed The Civil War with other rock-based multimedia music-theater works including Liberation, Joan of Arc, Aesop's Fables, The Bacchae, and Song of Songs. These and other works were performed by the Chicago Free Theater, which Russo founded and directed. One of the seminal troupes of the off-Loop theater movement that blossomed in Chicago in the late 1960s, the Free Theater spawned sister companies in Baltimore and San Francisco.
In 1969, Russo teamed up with director Paul Sills
Paul Sills
Paul Sills was a director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.-Biography:...
and community activist Rev. Jim Shiflett to establish the Body Politic Theatre, one of the first professional off-Loop theaters in Chicago. Russo's other works for the theater include the operas John Hooton (1962), The Island (1963), Land of Milk and Honey (1964), Antigone (1967), The Shepherds' Christmas, The Pay-Off (1983–84), The Sacrifice, and Dubrovsky (1988), as well as a double bill of operas inspired by commedia dell'arte, Isabella's Fortune and Pedrolino's Revenge (performed off-Broadway in 1974), and a musical fairy tale for children, The Golden Bird, for singers, narrator, dancers, and symphony orchestra (premiered in 1984 under the auspices of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). His collaborators on these and other works for the theater included Adrian Mitchell, Arnold Weinstein, Jon Swan, Alice Albright Hoge, Irma Routen, Naomi Lazard, Robert Perrey, Donald T. Sanders, Albert Williams, Jonathan Abarbanel, and Denise DeClue. Russo also composed art songs set to poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
, W.H. Auden, and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, as well as scores for dance and film.
As part of his work with Columbia College, he started the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, which was dedicated to preserving and expanding jazz. However a few years later this ensemble was disbanded, but was fully reborn in 1991 and continues to this day; Russo's successor as the CJE's artistic director was trumpeter Jon Faddis. Russo appeared with the band in the week before his death. After a bout with cancer, Russo retired as chair of the Columbia College Music Department in 2002. He died in 2003.
Russo's first wife, country/Western singer Shelby Davis, died at the age of 83 on April 20, 2010. He was also married to music teacher Jeremy Warburg and classical soprano Carol Lo Verde. His son, Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo is the son of American jazz composer William Russo and Jeremy Warburg...
, is a writer and author.
Other activities
Russo was also well known as a trombonistTrombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
and composition teacher. Among his notable pupils were John Barry
John Barry (composer)
John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...
, Richard Peaslee
Richard Peaslee
-London:*the Peter Brook / Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Marat/Sade, A Midsummer Night's Dream, US and Antony and Cleopatra;*Peter Hall / National Theatre Animal Farm;*Terry Hands / RSC Tamburlaine the Great;...
, Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin
Fred Karlin was an American composer of more than one hundred scores for feature films and television movies. He also was an accomplished trumpeter adept at playing jazz, blues, classical, rock, and medieval music....
, Patrick Gowers
Patrick Gowers
William Patrick Gowers is an English composer mainly known for his film scores.-Film music:Gowers' works include the following music scores: Comic Act , Forever Green , The Hound of the Baskervilles , The Sign of Four , Whoops Apocalypse , Anna Karenina , Smiley's People , I remember...
, Joseph Reiser, Albert Williams, Louis Rosen, and Mark Hollmann
Mark Hollmann
Mark Hollmann is an American composer and lyricist.Hollmann grew up in Fairview Heights Illinois, where he graduated from Belleville Township High School East in 1981. He won a 2002 Tony Award and a 2001 Obie Award for his music and lyrics to Urinetown. He is a former ensemble member of the...
.
In addition to composing, arranging, conducting, playing, and teaching, he also authored three respected books on music: Composing for the Jazz Orchestra (1973, University of Chicago Press, plus a workbook for the book in 1978); Jazz Composition and Orchestration (1968, 1974, pbk 1997, University of Chicago Press); and Composing Music: A New Approach, written with Jeffrey Ainis and David Stevenson, Russo's former students (1983, Prentice Hall; 1988, University of Chicago Press).
Overall, Russo composed more than 200 pieces for jazz orchestra, and there were more than 30 recordings of his work. His five-decade career included collaborations with his idol Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Stan Kenton, Cannonball Adderley, Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Benny Carter, Maynard Ferguson, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Cleo Laine, Annie Ross, and others.
In 1990, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that presents the Grammy Awards.
Discography
- A Recital of New American Music (Dee Gee Records)
- Experiment in Jazz (Universal Records)
- School of Rebellion
- The Seven Deadly Sins
- Russo In London
- The World Of Alcina
- Stonehenge
List of print works
- Composing for the Jazz Orchestra (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961, ISBN 978-0-226-73209-1)
- Composing Music: A New Approach (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0-226-73216-9)
- Jazz Composition and Orchestration (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968 ISBN 978-0-226-73208-4)
External links
- Obituary Bill Russo at the Jazz House
- Russo biography from the Chicago Jazz Ensemble website
- Yahoo Group for those studying the Russo Composing Music A New Approach book
- William Russo interview Columbia College 1998
- The Island is a jazz opera commissioned and broadcast in the 60's on radio themed on events in Garcia Diego written by William Russo, words Adrian Mitchell performed by the Russo Orchestra sung by Cleo Laine and Denis Quilley