Third-Stream Music

Author(s): Don Banks

Source: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 97 (1970 - 1971), pp. 59-67
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/766191
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Third-Stream Music
DON BANKS

THE TERM 'THIRD-STREAM MUSIC', coined by

composer Gunther Schuller in the I960s, has
largely accepted by the musical world as a u

description of a style which is a fusion be

serious music. Admittedly, 'serious' is an unsat

to apply to music, carrying as it does the implic

may not be serious, or that certain pieces by

Poulenc, for example, may not be worthy of
within broad limits what is meant by 'serious

readily understood. Even the term 'jazz', ap

explanatory, is not without a certain latitud

some will maintain that true jazz is negroid in co

will discount the contribution made by many wh

and composers. The limits of third-stream m

ill-defined and open to contention: it can mea
by a symphony orchestra with jazz soloists, o
solely by a group of jazz musicians. Usually th
ment is that it will include musicians capable
and playing jazz.

Jazz has had a comparatively short life s

character and style have been subject to a con

of change. In the early days in New Orlea

Creole and Spanish influences, and the marc

for parades) was important. Negro work- an
helped form it, and more recently it has ab
American music, evolved through an Afro-Cu
has also been subject to a number of experim
Indian music. The last few years have broug

extension via the use of electronic instruments and the

electronic treatment of sound.

All these changes have taken place within the jazz area by
jazz musicians, although it was Constant Lambert's opinion
in 1934 that...
the development of jazz is now clearly in the hands of the sophisticated

composer ... the jazz composer is now stagnating, bound to a narrow

circle of rhythmic and harmonic devices and neglecting the possibilities

of form. It is for the highbrow composer to take the next step.'

1 Music Ho!, London, 1934, pp. 16I-2.

4

59

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60

THIRD-STREAM

MUSIC

This certainly did not happ

in music for the concert h
the composers of serious m
from the early days of jazz
of Debussy, Satie and Stravin
charleston and blues appear
Seiber, Liebermann and Lam
conscious attempts by com
more than the application
use of cliches from jazz whic
musician) ill chosen. Yet at
jazz composers to extend the

and

only

too

often

displa

techniques of composition.
In the last fifteen years or

by

three

developments

the existence of third-stream music. First of all there is now a

wh

body of jazz musicians who are capable of interpreting a wide

range of music. They exist in most countries of the world, and

composers can write for them in the confidence that in

addition to playing jazz phrasing they will be able to deal

with all existing forms of notation as well. Secondly there has

been the appearance of composers who have not only had a

background of jazz experience, but are also well trained and
technically competent in the field of serious composition.
Finally there has been a change of climate in a period where

artists are more willing to use whatever materials fall to handa time of interest in pop culture where the sound, the noise, is

becoming of increasing importance; and a social setting

within which the avant garde of jazz demand to be taken

more seriously. They do not wish to be classed as entertainers or purveyors of dance music, but as serious artists with
something to contribute to the culture of their time.

We associate jazz mainly with improvised music. Without

denying the great contribution of such composers as Duke
Ellington, the important thing is that jazz has continued the
tradition of improvisation which was until recently lost to
serious music-for the declining call on the musicianship and
creative imagination of the individual player surely has been
a loss. Many composers are finding this out today, when so

many orchestral musicians feel affronted if asked to contribute

their own imaginative and creative voice towards a musical

end. The habit has been lost and they are ill at ease, even if

only asked to improvise rhythmically on a given set of pitches.

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THIRD-STREAM

The

MUSIC

gradual

dominance

reliance of players on hi
provisation of cadenzas h
One could perhaps argue
individual interpretation
would be to overlook the
the

exception

of

those

arti

to make gramophone rec

Armstrong, Jelly Roll M
Duke Ellington interpret
refer to text books or to

mances exist
development

on disc wa
of tape-re

puterized storage of soun

original discs has been pr

The art of combining jazz

of problems. The first, and

of
as

phrasing

and

exemplified

Train

such

and

as

to

the

articulat

by

defy

the

Jim

River',
precise

writing for jazz and

utmost care must be

write

passages

in

wi

not

seri
tak

unison,

be hard to achieve. An a
and in their 'Improvisati
Orchestra' Matyas Seiber
to point out in a footnot
that a passage where the
notated in 12/8 and the
in unison-in accordance
quavers are played approx

of

overcoming the difficu

in passages of any length
to use orchestral forces t
beats which fall on prime

jazz

musicians

between

should

in

the

their

not

free

own

expect

ind

orch

phrasing, and equally su

musicians from their na
phrase. Let each party do
Before dealing with rh
appropriate

at

this

point

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62

THIRD-STREAM

MUSIC

share. In a recent article Hans Keller has referred to his

proposition that 'the clearer the tension, the more logical

music-and the clearest tension is that which combines a

maximum of contradiction with a maximum of unity betwe

the contradicting elements'.2 This 'maximum of contradi

with a maximum of unity between the contradicting elemen

could be applied to the two different forces of jazz and seri

musicians sharing the same basic musical material-each

thereby illuminating different facets of the same source. This

I have attempted to do in my own works such as 'Equation I

and II' for chamber group of twelve players, 'Meeting Place'
for chamber ensemble, jazz group and sound synthesiser,
and the recently completed 'Nexus' for symphony orchestra
and jazz quintet. But I would also refer to 'Improvisations for
Orchestra and Jazz Soloists' by the American composer
Larry Austin. Writing about this piece the composer says:
At strategic points throughout the work are brief moments in which
individual performers-at times orchestral, at times jazz, at times both
-invent rhythmic designs on given pitches within specified spans of
time. I believe this 'uncontrolled' element injects moments of creative
tension not readily obtainable in a situation completely controlled by
the composer.3

The point is illustrated by the final section of the piece, which

gives rise to a conglomeration of metrical processes.b

This particular example is principally a rhythmic one, and

hardly touches on the great problems that arise within the
harmonic framework of a piece, especially where jazz improvisation is concerned. But of course a third-stream piece may
be completely notated, as is Milton Babbitt's 'All Set', for
example. Here, although Babbitt has written specifically for
jazz musicians, he applies to the piece his normal working
methods of highly integrated serialism. There are no solos, so

as composer he is completely in control of the harmonic

tension.c

A serious problem does arise when one wants a jazz soloist

to improvise within the framework of a larger composition. I

have tried to approach this from a number of ways. In

'Equation I', one of my first attempts, I rather avoided the

problem by adopting Babbitt's solution-that is by com-

pletely notating the piece. In my next work, 'Settings from

Roget', written for Cleo Laine and the John Dankworth

Quartet, the situation was rather different; I was dealing with

2 'Closer Towards a Theory of Music', The Listener, I8 February 1971.
3 Sleeve-note to MS 6733-

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THIRD-STREAM MUSIC 63

jazz musicians of the highest cal

range of interpretation, so the firs

twelve-note in origin. I devised a

improvisation by its not being too
is obvious from the first piece.d T

that it is based on Messiaen's second mode of limited trans-

position. The improvised section in this has the mode written

for the alto saxophone and the bass player, whilst for the piano
it is stated as a series of eight-part chords to be used freely.e

Another example of a twelve-note series used as a basis for

improvisation, as well as a notated section for chamber
ensemble, comes from the last movement of my composition
'Meeting Place'. Here the series is divided into three four-part
chords which allow themselves to become encrusted, as it
were, into more jazz-like harmonies for the basis of an alto
saxophone solo. In the opening of the movement the three
chords are built up into a twelve-note aggregate, over which
float melodic statements (determined as to pitch, but not
rhythm) by three solo instruments from the chamber ensemble.
This continues until the jazz group enters with its statement of

the three chords, and leads to an alto saxophone solo with a

harmonic accompaniment by string quartet which is built
from various transpositions of the series. Eventually a section
occurs where the jazz group takes over the harmonic accompaniment to the improvised saxophone solo, and the chords
are transformed to give a much more jazz-like sound!f
This, then, is one method I have used of employing a twelve-

note series to give a harmonic stability which will not be too

foreign to a jazz soloist. One must try to exploit to the full the
improvising abilities of the soloist, yet at the same time to im-

pose a measure of harmonic control. This is a personal point

of view which would doubtless be frowned upon by the more

avant garde of the jazz movement, who rebel against the

confines dictated in the past by the twelve-bar blues and the

32-bar ballad. 'Free-form' is their answer, meaning more or

less complete liberty for self-expression away from the confines

of harmonic discipline.

As a composer I regret this, and I will not willingly abdicate

my right to remain in control of all major elements of a piece.

I have my own vision of a sound-world which I wish to see

enacted in my compositions. This may be a reactionary

viewpoint, but as a composer I achieve fulfilment this wayand yet as a one-time jazz-musician I know the joys of improvisation, and can see the other side of the coin as well. I hope

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64 THIRD-STREAM MUSIC

to write for jazz musicians with

them a maximum freedom for t
this must still take second place
piece as a whole.
Another harmonic solution I ha
in the second movement of 'Me
was the flugel-horn player Kenn

with a sensitive ear for sound. In t

in his part, knowing that he would

sounds accompanying him in h

wrote out the first four bars of a theme I wished him to

establish, and in the ensuing improvised solo he was supplied

with three chord symbols only.9

The rhythmic processes of jazz are often the first things to
fascinate the composer of serious music, but this is true of any

music with roots in a folk tradition. The tango and ragtime,

the samba and boogie-woogie, all have a constant rhythmic
pulse used as a basis for melodic and harmonic variation. It
is often levelled at jazz, in particular, that the unrelenting

beat leads to monotony, but I believe this to be a misconception

Constant Lambert's rejoinder to this criticism still holds good:

It is often suggested that jazz rhythm, though exhilarating at first, ends

by becoming monotonous through its being merely a series of irregular

groupings and cross-accents over a steady and unyielding pulse. This

is true in a way, and certainly nothing is more wearisome than the

mechanical division of the eight quavers of the foxtrot bar into groups
of three, three and two; yet in the best negro jazz bands the irregular

cross-accents are given so much more weight than the underlying

pulse, that the rhythmic arabesques almost obscure the metrical frame-

work, and paradoxically enough this 'bar-line' music often achieves a

rhythmic freedom that recalls the music of Elizabethan times and
earlier, when the bar-line was a mere technical convenience ...4

In his reference to the irregular cross-accents obscuring th

underlying metrical framework, Lambert was most likely

referring at the time to what the front-line players (or melodi

groups) were doing in relationship to the rhythm section

itself. But the latter was subjected to a great deal of re-thinking

during the era of Bop in the I940s when soloists such as Dizz
Gillespie and Charlie Parker, together with the drummer
Kenny Clarke, were doing so much to liberate the function
of the rhythm section. The pianist, bass player and drumme
now have much more freedom in varying their own cross
accents in relation to what the others are doing. This is
demonstrated by the drummer Shelley Manne's playing, with
4 Music Ho!, p. 159.

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THIRD-STREAM MUSIC 65

the pianist Bill Evans, in Irving

Twist',h and an example of how m

rhythmic structure may be is the th

the central slow movement in Ge

Rosie'.'

It is true that, no matter how metronomic the beat may

appear to be, it is a living, fluid thing. Any conductor who has

directed a group of jazz musicians in a film recording studio,

whilst trying to fit the music precisely to a strip of film, will

have found this out. Naturally the same applies to music

played by serious musicians-there is always an amount of
give and take, although it would appear that the difference
with the jazz musicians is in the way they tend to 'lie back'
on the beat and play slightly behind it. In 'Meeting Place'
there was one movement in which all players were severely
tested rhythmically. The initial and dominating rhythmic

pulse of the fifth movement (a scherzo) is supplied by electronics, the movement opening with a fast group of eight quavers in

a bar played by a sound synthesizer. In rehearsal both the

chamber ensemble and jazz group had difficulty in fitting to
an immovable, metronomic beat. I had anticipated this by
making the piece a short one, lasting under three minutes,
as I thought that to go on longer would be tempting fate-or
human endurance. In performance, though, the difficulties
were overcome, and it became an exciting experience to hear
how well the players accommodated themselves to the rigidity

of an electronic beat)

That piece was strictly notated, but in respect of the freedom

of the interpreter there is an overlap between certain contemp-

orary procedures and those which have long existed in jazz.

It has been said of Luciano Berio, and in particular his solo
Sequenze, that the idiosyncrasies of each performer's style are
built into the music, so that Berio, while retaining full control

over his composition, restores much of the executant's longlost freedom of action. Again, in a programme note on the

music of Duke Ellington, the American writer Ralph J.

Gleason has remarked:

Duke Ellington has been choreographing the solos of individuals

longer than anyone. He has worked out such a delicate solution to this,
in terms of writing for the specific personalities who will be playing
his music, that he can set up the context for a solo in such a way that
what the soloist is moved to improvise at that point is almost precisely
what Ellington intended.5

5 Sleeve-note to C2S 831.

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66

THIRD-STREAM

MUSIC

It is therefore interesting t
musician playing music by

an

improvised

solo-for

ex

Berio's Sequenza V, and the ja

soloist in Barry Guy's 'Ode fo
The actual sound of the Beri
long tradition of fine jazz tro
Nanton onwards. In fact ther

the

best

of

modern

jazz

Freedom for the soloist has also meant freedom for the

an

ensemble in serious music, as witness the Lukas Foss Impr

visation Ensemble, the Larry Austin Group in America, an
the activities centred on Cornelius Cardew in this countr
Chance music ? Aleatoric music ?-they have been present

jazz from its inception, and must have had an influence on th

musical climate in America which has produced John Cag

Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, Dave Reck and others, and

certainly such composers as Gunther Schuller, Salvato

Martirano and Donald Erb.

I would not claim that third-stream music is, at the momen

more than a fascinating part of the complex of music of o

time. But it shows signs of becoming more than an isolate
phenomenon, especially in America. There, in the birthpla

of jazz as we know it, it is rapidly becoming absorbed into the

blood stream of composers, so that it no longer requires

conscious effort on their part to produce a piece employin
jazz elements. Instead it will naturally fall into place with t

other techniques of composition that a composer has developed

in his lifetime.

This can be found in the works of the three composers just

mentioned. It appears, in both overt and covert forms, in such

pieces by Gunther Schuller as his opera The Visitation or his

'Contours' for small orchestra,' with Donald Erb in a very
direct way in his piece Klangfarbenfunk I for 'rock' band,
symphony orchestra and electronic sounds, and with Salvatore

Martirano in his 'L's GA' for 'gas-masked politico, helium

bomb and two-channel tape', or in a quite original manner, in

his 'Ballad' for jazz singer and chamber ensemble. In this

latter piece he sees nothing unusual in taking a string of
popular ballads such as 'You are too beautiful' and 'They say
that falling in love is wonderful', and placing them in a musical

setting which often has more to do with Webern than jazz.m

So the situation regarding third-stream music is still an
open one, and there can be no doubt that within its limitations

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THIRD-STREAM MUSIC 67

a number of composers will b

improvising abilities ofjazz musicia

but fortunately growing, number
are re-discovering lost skills.

The following recorded illustrations (on

catalogue number is cited) were heard d

a 'The Train and the River', played by t

b Larry Austin's 'Improvisations for Or

York Philharmonic Orchestra, condu

6733).
c Milton Babbitt's 'All Set' (C2S 831).
d A section of the first of the author's 'Settings from Roget': Cleo Laine and

the John Dankworth Quartet (STL 5483).

e A section of the last of the author's 'Settings from Roget'.

f The opening section of the last movement of the author's 'Meeting Place'

for chamber ensemble, jazz group and sound synthesizer: the London

Sinfonietta with jazz group, conducted by David Atherton.

g Part of the second movement of 'Meeting Place'.
h Irving Berlin's 'The Washington Twist': Shelley Manne and Bill Evans

(SVLP 9070).
i George Russell's 'All About Rosie' (C2S 831).

j The fifth movement of 'Meeting Place'.

k Berio's Sequenza V: Vinko Globokar (137005); and Barry Guy's 'Ode for
Jazz Orchestra': Paul Rutherford (solo trombone).

1 Part of the third movement of Gunther Schuller's 'Contours' for small

orchestra.

m Salvatore Martirano's 'Ballad' (24-5001).

4*

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