Grant to George Russell Well Deserved; Summer Cruises Get Ready to Hit the Waves

George Russell has been the jazz composers’ jazz composer for nearly four decades. Like Fletcher Henderson before him, he has been held in high esteem by his contemporaries, despite the failure of the larger jazz audience to acknowledge his skills fully.

It was particularly gratifying, therefore, when it was announced last week that Russell had received a $375,000 award, spread over a five-year period, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The 66-year-old Russell, who has been teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music for the last 20 years, is currently in Paris, rehearsing a 15-piece band for a summer European tour, his fourth in the last four years. Reached by telephone earlier this week, he described his reactions to the award in typically controlled language.

“It certainly floored me when I heard about it,” Russell said. “But I’m doing fine now. Everything happens in its proper time, and my first reaction was that it had come at exactly the right time--economically, of course, but also at the right age for me. I’m at the stage now where I think I can handle a windfall of this size. There was a time when it might have been overwhelming.

“The Norwegians have an expression that goes: ‘It takes a strong back to carry a good day.’ I hate to equate good days with money, because that’s not necessarily true. But the MacArthur grant is certainly going to enable me to make some of the goals that I wanted to get.”

At the top of Russell’s want list is the completion of his second book, “The Science of Tonal Gravity.” Two-thirds along the way, it will be an expansion of his “Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”--the first, and still the best and most practical, approach to the art of improvisation.

“Finishing the book has always been top priority,” he said. “I’ve been focusing on it for a long time, even when I didn’t have time off to think about it. But that’s just as well. Too much time off would unfocus me. I seem to work better under deadlines. If I get time off, I get lazy. Hopefully the award will allow me to find the right balance of time to complete the book.”

Russell saw no possibility that the award would have a significant effect upon his compositions. The complex multi-rhythms and disjunct melodies of his early work--so influential in the ‘60s on musicians as diverse as Art Farmer, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Don Ellis--have evolved over the years into a mature music that almost defies categorization.

“I’ll continue doing what I’ve been doing,” he said. “My present work tries to achieve a kind of world view or synthesis of many kinds of musics, one that doesn’t ignore the sounds of our time. My hope is that it’s a complete music--physical, emotional as well as thought-provoking.”

DIG OUT THE DRAMAMINE: Two upcoming jazz cruises are beginning to take bookings for their necessarily limited space.

The first--on NCL’s Southward--embarks from Los Angeles on Aug. 28 for a four-day trip to the south, with stops in Catalina, San Diego and Ensenada. The stellar jazz contingent on board includes Lorez Alexandria, Bill Henderson, Harry (Sweets) Edison, Jack Sheldon, Red Holloway, Plas Johnson, Art Hillary and others. Chuck Niles of KKGO and Bob Parlocha of KJAZ will emcee the performances. Information: (213) 471-1710.

The second cruise takes place on the Regent Sun, departing from Vancouver, Canada, on Sept. 17 and arriving in Los Angeles four days later.