Fanfare

Distinguished Professor David N. Baker, chair of the Jazz Studies Department, received the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award for 2006 on Thursday, September 7. The annual award recognizes an IU faculty member who has achieved international recognition for work as a performer, composer, scholar, and educator. With an extraordinary career as composer, jazz pedagogue, performer, and national arts leader, Baker continues to inspire students, faculty colleagues, and alumni, as well as musicians and arts leaders around the world.

In his acceptance of the award, given by Michael A. McRobbie, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at IU Bloomington, Baker presented the following lecture.

THOUGHTS ON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS OF A THIRDSTREAM COMPOSER: A PERSONAL ODYSSEY

Good afternoon. I am deeply honored to be here with you today to deliver this lecture and to receive the 2006 Tracy M. Sonneborn Award. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the members of the Sonneborn Award Committee, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties and to Interim Provost Michael McRobbie and Vice Chancellor Jeanne Sept for inviting me to speak on this occasion and for presenting me with this wonderful award. I would also like to thank with all my heart my dear friends and faculty colleagues who supported my nomination -- Janos Starker, who placed my name in nomination, and Anya Royce, Menahem Pressler, Dominic Spera, Marika Kuzma, Larry Hurst, and David Dzubay who wrote letters of recommendation.

I have received many honors throughout my career, and this one is very special for me. For a number of years I served as a member of the Sonneborn Award Committee, and in that capacity I reviewed the nominating materials of many of the exceptional individuals who have received this prestigious award in the past. Joining their august company today is truly a thrilling experience for me!

After speaking briefly about what the thirdstream is, I'll discuss how I have utilized its philosophy and approach as one of the ways in which I write music. I will also play excerpts from some of my compositions to illustrate a number of different approaches I have used in creating music that is stylistically considered thirdstream.

The term "thirdstream" was coined by Gunther Schuller, the noted composer, author, historian, and former President of the New England Conservatory of Music. Introduced in a lecture Mr. Schuller delivered on August 17, 1957 at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, the term is defined by Nicolas Slonimsky in his book Music Since 1900 as follows: "If the first stream is classical, and the second stream is jazz, Thirdstream is their Hegelian synthesis, which unites and reconciles the classical thesis with the popular antithesis."

In practice, thirdstream compositions strive for a mix that borrows elements from both jazz and classical music. Traditionally, the jazz elements have included language, including scales, harmonic structures, and harmonic sequences; gestures–that is, articulation and phrasing, for example–, instrumental entities such as the big band and the jazz combo; improvisation; rhythmic components; and formal structures such as the blues and popular song forms. The elements drawn from art music have included standard instrumental configurations such as the symphony orchestra, the string quartet, the woodwind quintet, and the brass choir; formal structures such as the canon, fugue, rondo, passacaglia, and sonata allegro; and ways of handling musical materials that include developmental techniques, counterpoint, and serial techniques.

Since the late 1950s the term "thirdstream" has been broadened to include the synthesis of elements of classical music not only with jazz but also with other folk and popular musics. Quoting Gunther Schuller: "Through improvisation, written composition, or both, the goal was to synthesize the essential characteristics and techniques of contemporary Western Art Music and various ethnic or vernacular musics."

Although the term itself did not come into being until the 1950s, the concept of thirdstream music was not entirely new. There had been earlier attempts–with varying degrees of success–by both classical composers and jazz composers to create a synthesis of classical and jazz elements within the same composition. However, more often than not, these endeavors failed because the composers' skills and understanding were confined almost exclusively to one or the other of the two musical genres. Only with the emergence of an increasing number of composers equally conversant with the imperatives of both jazz and European art music and possessing the necessary compositional skills and discipline did the quality of compositions created in the thirdstream style begin to rise accordingly.

It was the philosophical rubric of thirdstream–not only in the narrower view of combining classical music and jazz, but also in the broader interpretation which combined classical music with various ethnic or vernacular musics–that provided me with the means to seek out my own identity as a composer.

My musical life has been a bifurcated existence. On the one hand, I grew up in the rich musical tradition of the black community, in the world of church and gospel music, blues and rhythm & blues, and jazz. On the other hand, I was trained at Indiana University as a classical musician and was fully prepared to perform and work in the classical world.

However, I learned very quickly that, as a black man, my options in music as a profession were limited. At that time, there were clearly defined areas of the music business to which blacks had access, and classical music was, for the most part, not one of them.

As a player, I was told after successfully auditioning for orchestras that, unfortunately, due to the social conditions of the time, it was not possible for them to offer me a contract, as their boards and other managing entities were opposed to hiring black musicians. As for composing, there was no reason for me to aspire to write classical music. At that time the handful of black composers who were actually writing classical music were constantly struggling to have their works performed. There were virtually no role models for me to follow, and very limited opportunities to hear the music these composers were creating. My thinking was, why write music that I would never, in all likelihood, hear played?

So I began my musical career, both as a performer and as a composer, in the areas that were open to me: jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, and black sacred music (church music and gospel music.) But it wasn't long before I began to feel restricted by these limitations and unwilling to accept the fetters imposed on me by societal demands rather than artistic considerations. I knew even then that I wanted to do more. I just didn't know how to go about expanding my creative horizons.

I had begun composing music during my student days at Indiana University. During that time and for some years after, I led a working big band for which I wrote a number of original jazz compositions and arrangements. While many of these pieces have stood the test of time and are still being played by student and professional bands to this day, I saw myself writing what seemed to me to be essentially "gebrauchsmusik," which is to say, music that I created for my band's specific performance activities and for the special group of musicians that made up the ensemble.

In the 1950s and 1960s I concentrated on building a successful career as a jazz performer and composer-arranger. During that time I also began writing music in a developing genre that would later become known as liturgical jazz. This was jazz music that was written utilizing the formal structures, texts, and other elements of sacred music, and was most often performed as a part of a worship service or other religious activity, although large works such as cantatas and oratorios were sometimes programmed as concerts or as special events.

By the end of the 1960's, I had written a number of compositions, including some extended religious works. I had been teaching at Indiana University since 1966 and had started writing my first books, so the composing I was doing at that time was primarily for the IU jazz band.

Then in 1969 a wonderful encounter took place that–while I didn't know it at the time–would change my musical life forever. I was approached by my dear friend and faculty colleague, the legendary violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold, about a piece he had heard, a composition for violin and jazz band by William Russo. In the course of our discussion, Joe asked me if I would be willing to write a concerto for him to play with my IU jazz band. I agreed to do it, and of course his performance with the band was masterful! This led to requests from other equally distinguished faculty colleagues for pieces to be written for them.

To say that I was thrilled would be an understatement. These requests were coming from extraordinary musicians such as Janos Starker, for whom I have written a number of works over the years, as well as Harvey Phillips, Menahem Pressler, James Pellerite, Charles Webb, Wallace Hornibrook, and Dominic Spera. More recently, I've written for James Campbell, Howard Klug, Dee Stewart, Dan Perantoni, and others.

But I was admittedly a reluctant composer, partly because I was still searching for my musical identity. After the Gingold concerto, I went through a period of some ten years when, although I was writing a lot of music, much of it on commission, I felt I had a split musical personality. I was writing in two parallel, but totally separate musical universes. On the one hand, I was writing jazz music, using the skills I had learned from experience and from informal guidance from accomplished jazz composer-arrangers. On the other hand, I was also writing classical music in the various styles I had been taught by the established classical composers with whom I had studied in more formal academic settings.

My epiphany came as a result of my investigation of the life and music of Bela Bartok, whose work I admired greatly. In looking at the ways in which he had drawn on the folk music of the Magyars and other groups he had studied and transcribed and then utilized those materials in his own compositions, I saw a viable model I could follow in my quest to become the fully complete composer I desired to be, no longer separating my jazz & ethnic side from my classical side, but finding a way to create an artistic synthesis of the two sides.

There were compositions being written at that time which endeavored to combine these elements, but frankly I was not impressed with what I was hearing. I had already come to the realization that in writing music that was deliberately devoid of any elements or references to my own cultural upbringing, while it might have been successful on paper, was musically unsatisfying for me. Finding a way to write out of the totality of my life experience, while remaining true to the stylistic imperatives of all my musical influences, was a challenge I faced and embraced.

In addition to the influence of Bartok, I took great inspiration from two other composers, Charles Ives and Duke Ellington. Charles Ives for the sheer audacity and imagination he exhibited in incorporating musical materials from wildly disparate sources and from his daily experiences. Ellington for, among other things, the ways in which he used ethnic elements within the jazz tradition.

Although many of the compositions I have written combine elements of jazz and ethnic music with elements of classical music–as in the description I gave earlier of the style known as thirdstream–I am not exclusively a thirdstream composer. I also write music that is strictly jazz and music which is strictly classical. But for the purposes of this lecture, I'd like now to play recorded excerpts from several of my thirdstream compositions and tell you about the ways in which these pieces illustrate the different means by which I have chosen to express this synthesis.

Example 1
The "Boogie Woogie" movement from ROOTS II (1994)
This is a work in five movements and was written for the Beaux Arts Trio at the request of pianist and IU Distinguished Professor Menahem Pressler, its long-time leader. The piano trio is an instrumental ensemble in the classical tradition, and the character of the theme of this movement is decidedly classical in nature. Among the jazz elements are the form, which is the blues exclusively (although it's not blatently obvious,) the use of blues scales and patterns, written lines which I created to sound as though they were being improvised, and the overall structure of the movement which, like a jazz performance, states the theme and the beginning and the end, with a series of choruses or variations, each of which realizes the harmonic material in a different way.
Commissioned by Menahem Pressler for the Beaux Arts Trio
Recording: Spring Music. Philips Digital Classics 438 866-2.
The Beaux Arts Trio [Menahem Pressler, piano; Ida Kavafian, violin; Peter Wiley, violoncello]

Example 2
An excerpt from the second movement of CONCERTO FOR FLUTE, STRING QUARTET AND JAZZ BAND (1971)
The flute soloist is IU Professor Emeritus James Pellerite, who is playing the alto flute in this movement. Among the classical components I used were the formal structure–this movement is a passacaglia and also a concerto grosso–and several aspects of the instrumentation: the classical soloist, the string quartet, and the classical Indian tabla. On the jazz side, I used the jazz band (complete with electric bass and electric guitar,) the blues scale, quotes from the improvisations of Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz elements, including the character of the ostinato. In writing for the soloist, I once again composed a number of written lines that are designed to sound improvised, along with others which are not.
Commissioned by James Pellerite.
Recording: David Baker: Concerto for Violin and Jazz Band/Concerto for Flute, String Quartet and Jazz Band. Laurel Record LR-125. James Pellerite, flute soloist. Indiana University Jazz Ensemble and String Quartet; David Baker, conductor. This recording was made in 1984, and the members of the Jazz Ensemble at that time included IU Jacobs School of Music Jazz Department faculty member Pat Harbison on trumpet, internationally acclaimed jazz performer and recording artist Chris Botti on trumpet, and drummer Shawn Pelton who has been a member of the band on the television show "Saturday Night Live" for more than twenty years.

Example #3
An excerpt from the first movement of SONATA FOR JAZZ VIOLIN AND STRING QUARTET (1987)
The violin soloist is the late Joseph Kennedy, Jr. who, unlike many artists for whom I have written, was equally accomplished as a classical artist and a jazz artist. As a result, this is one of the few times I have written a piece which allows the soloist free rein to create his or her own improvisation. The Audubon String Quartet is one of the most versatile classical ensembles of its kind and understood and successfully realized both the classical and jazz-influenced writing in this work. The first and second themes are classical in nature; the third theme is written over the harmonic progression of the well-known jazz composition Half Nelson, which then acts as the basis for a series of realizations of this harmonic progression, some of which include improvisation by the violin soloist. I'll only have time to play the piece up through some of these improvisations, but many other jazz and classical elements are incorporated in this multi-movement work.
Commissioned by The Audubon Quartet for Joseph Kennedy, Jr.
Recording: Through the Prism of the Black Experience. Liscio Artist Series LAS-11972.
Joseph Kennedy, Jr., jazz violin soloist. The Audubon Quartet [David Ehrlich, violin; David Salness, violin; Doris Lederer, viola; C. Thomas Shaw, violoncello]

Example 4
The movement entitled Buddy and Beyond from my composition HERITAGE (1996)
This work was commissioned by clarinetist James Campbell and is a multi-movement suite in which I pay homage to a number of the great jazz clarinetists. In this movement the "Buddy" in the title refers to jazz great Buddy DeFranco. An interesting element of this piece is the mix of classical and jazz players: Jim Campbell on clarinet, Corey Cerovek on violin, Bruce Bransby on bass, and Gene DiNovi on piano. It is very much a chamber piece in instrumentation, even though it could also be seen as a combination of clarinet and violin with a rhythm section which is minus the drums. The theme statement, while classical in nature, utilizes the harmonic progression of the well-known jazz composition Half Nelson, which is heard earlier in the SONATA FOR JAZZ VIOLIN AND STRING QUARTET and is given an entirely different treatment here. Improvisation-like writing is present throughout much of the piece, and actual improvisation is also provided in sections by jazz pianist Gene DiNovi. The continuous repetition of the harmonic structure gives the piece a theme-and-variations feel and also the feel of a jazz piece with the differing realizations of a repeating structure likened to improvised choruses. A slow, bluesy section closes this movement.
Commissioned by James Campbell.
Recording: David Baker at Bay Chamber Concerts. Cala CACD-77010.
James Campbell, clarinet; Corey Cerovsek, violin; Gene DiNovi, piano; Bruce Bransby, bass.

Example 5
The movement entitled Dizzy from my composition SINGERS OF SONGS, WEAVERS OF DREAMS (1980)
This multi-movement work was written for the duo of legendary artists cellist and IU Distinguished Professor Janos Starker and percussionist and IU Professor Emeritus George Gaber, who handle the virtuoso demands of both the jazz and classical aspects of this composition with extraordinary artistry. In the movement entitled "Dizzy", many elements associated with jazz and the black folk tradition are apparent, among them a bluesy ostinato, Afro-Latin and Afro-Cuban rhythms, call and response, the blues scale, jazz phrasing and swing, jazz rhythms, and a wide variety of percussion colors.
Commissioned by Janos Starker.
Recording: Starker Plays Baker. Laurel Record CD LR-817CD.
Janos Starker, violoncello; George Gaber, percussion [seventeen instruments!]

Example 6
A movement from JAZZ SUITE FOR CLARINET AND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: THREE ETHNIC DANCES (1992)
It utilizes the classical elements of a full orchestra and a classical soloist in a piece that is jazz-influenced, and is a work in which each of the three movements presents a stylized portrayal of a dance type. It is the third and final movement, entitled Calypso. This movement utilizes three distinct themes. The first is a jazzy calypso melody. The second melody features the clarinet soloist in an improvisational-like descant over the repeat statement. The third melody is more classical in its character and was written using the formal structure and harmonic progression of the blues. The movement ends with the first theme, exuberantly played by the full orchestra and soloist.
Commissioned by the Akron Symphony Orchestra for their conductor, Maestro Alan Balter.
Recording: American Voices: The African-American Composers Project. Telarc CD-80409.
Alan Balter, clarinet soloist; The Akron Symphony Orchestra.

I'd like to close by thanking all of you for coming and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts and my music with you today.

-David N. Baker