Third Volume of Gunther Schuller's Set on Jazz

[Brownian Motion]

Schuller's "The Swing Era" was published in 1989, with the promise of a third volume of writing covering post-WWII jazz. Is the third volume still in the works? Anyone know?

Edited February 1, 2009 by Brownian Motion

[J.A.W.]

If I remember correctly Schuller abandoned the project years ago.

[Larry Kart]

I believe that it was in response to Schuller's abandonment of the project that Bill Kirchner decided to assemble "The Oxford Companion To Jazz":

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Jaz...7344&sr=1-1

in which an allegedly qualified individual writer (yours truly was one) was asked to write each chapter, and the totality would be as comprehensive as space and each writer's actually savvy would permit. In the event, and thanks in large part to Bill's stewardship, the project was completed in remarkably short order.

Gunther's main problem was that he felt that no one man, certainly not a man of his age, could do the job anymore -- if only because the developing music would slip out from one's grasp during the time one was working on such a project. On the other hand, I think that Alyn Shipton took a good whack at it.

[J.A.W.]

On the other hand, I think that Alyn Shipton took a good whack at it.

Shipton's "A New History of Jazz"

[Guest Bill Barton]

It's interesting and perhaps a case of synchronicity that this thread should appear at this particular time.

A little over a decade ago, when I was living in upstate New York, Mr. Schuller was the guest lecturer at SUNY-Plattsburgh's 20th annual jazz festival. I interviewed him at some length for Mountain-Lake Public Radio, where I was Music Director at the time.

The radio station proceeded to go belly-up before I could edit the interview for broadcast. An original audiocassette of the hour-long interview has gone along with me in myriad moves. Just last week I finally found it and transferred it to digital format. I'm working on editing it down to the essentials and adding in some of the music discussed to produce a program.

Why is this synchronous? The first question I asked him was the very one that began this thread. What J.A.W. and Larry Kart said was most definitely already the case in 1996.

As Larry said, "Gunther's main problem was that he felt that no one man, certainly not a man of his age, could do the job anymore -- if only because the developing music would slip out from one's grasp during the time one was working on such a project..."

It is quite remarkable that Schuller listened - in depth not just once - to every single recording discussed in Early Jazz and The Swing Era. Being able to do that with post-Swing Era music would obviously take one person a lifetime and probably wouldn't even be possible.

One of the things that I recall most vividly is how gracious he was. His management people originally told me that he could spare only 15 minutes tops of his time. We ended up talking for well over an hour, approaching an hour-and-a-half, and then he was apologetic about cutting it off! It was really more of a conversation than an "interview." Perhaps he warmed to me because I actually knew who John Nesbitt was and had heard his music (thanks to the extensive analysis of his role in the McKinney's Cotton Pickers band in Schuller's book.) A very nice memory...

[J.A.W.]

Gunther's main problem was that he felt that no one man, certainly not a man of his age, could do the job anymore -- if only because the developing music would slip out from one's grasp during the time one was working on such a project.

To put things in perspective as far as Mr Schuller's age is concerned, he was born in November 1925, so he's now 83.

Edited February 1, 2009 by J.A.W.

[marcello]

In a conversation with a friend/musician who was taking leave of a project that Mr. Schuller was directing because of stress from too many projects, Schuller told him he knew exactly what he was talking about and told of a time in his life when he literally work himself into exhaustion.

I say this not to infer that Schuller is delicate and somehow prone to collapse, but to indicate that he is a intensely dedicated musician/author and conceptualist who knows his limits and has high standards.

[AllenLowe]

it would be interesting to see, though the more I got into the music, the less I agreed with The Swing Era; though it's always valuable to read what he has to say -

on the other hand, a reliable source, who knows a lot about such things (because I am hopeless in this area) has said that his Swing Era musical transcriptions are riddled with errors, which is unfortunate, as they comprise such a large part of his arguments -

[Brownian Motion]

it would be interesting to see, though the more I got into the music, the less I agreed with The Swing Era; though it's always valuable to read what he has to say -

on the other hand, a reliable source, who knows a lot about such things (because I am hopeless in this area) has said that his Swing Era musical transcriptions are riddled with errors, which is unfortunate, as they comprise such a large part of his arguments -

I think "Early Jazz" is the better work, probably because he was able to maintain a more dispassionate approach to his material. With the "Swing Era" he was dealing with the music of his youth, and that probably colored his judgements.

Anyway, I'm sorry that I can no longer look forward to Mr. Schuller's Part 3. Thanks to everyone for the information and suggestions.

[Big Beat Steve]

Yes it is a pity that there will never be a Vol. 3 (actually I had had little hopes - if any - for it anyway). I read "The Swing Era" in the early 90s and was very impressed (though the transcriptions are beyond me too) and I still refer to it to this day. No matter whether one agrees with all of his judgments it is a very important reference work if you want to get a quick yet in-depth and to-the-point assessment even of acts who are off the trodden track of the usual bi-gstar suspects.

Gunther Schuller managed to pull strings together that others seem to have become aware only recently. IMHO "colored judgments" are no issue in such books at all; I think any collector with reasonable collecting experience and a musical taste of his own will not take such books as the pure gospel anyway but rather as a source for FURTHER thought. (After all, we are not talking about extremely biased writings here such as those by Panassié! :D)

The Swing years seem to have been prone to a lot of controversies as to who would qualify as a "jazz" swing musician (to be included) or a "pop" swing musician (to be excluded) anyway, and no matter what concrete complaints Brownian Motion etc. have here, he definitely is more objective than other respectable writers on the Swing era (cf. Brian Rust and his arbitrary exclusion of swing bands in his discographies, etc. etc.).

Edited February 2, 2009 by Big Beat Steve