Gunther Schuller's third stream: Story of an invented music style

Abstract

Since its emergence in the United States in the early 20th century, coming mainly from the African-American community in New Orleans, jazz music has always been inherently a fusion, the most prominent inputs that shaped its characteristics being, broadly put, the African rhythmic structures and European harmony. New Orleans jazz, for one, featured elements from many musics, including minstrels, French marching bands and blues. Jazz, at least in its earlier times, has been seldomly defined in relation to its individual influences and came to be an established branch of musical tradition in its own right early on in its development. Yet, adopting new stylistic elements became a characteristic feature of the tradition throughout its later advancements, which functioned to drive it forward and led to the emergence of a distinctive style almost every decade throughout the first half of the 20th century. Classical music, however, despite that its earlier forms were very much influenced by a variety of European folk musical styles, by the late 19th century and early 20th century, was rather a fixed entity, being defined largely as "art music" belonging mostly to the elite. With the fast-paced advancements in virtually all artistic and scientific areas that came in the 20th century, classical music would also be carried away by the strong currents of change and innovation. It would develop non-tonal practices, be influenced by folk music more than at least the past century, utilize complex rhythmic textures other than the most common ones such as 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 and develop many unconventional performance practices merely in a few decades of the century. While contemporary practices and techniques were opening up to outer influences more than ever, jazz has constituted a prime attraction for many composers like Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and Bartók. In short, the trade between classical music and jazz was never a new notion. Third Stream, a term coined by the composer Gunther Schuller in a lecture he gave at Brandeis University in 1957, stands out among earlier confluences as being a conscious attempt at bringing the two traditions of music together to shape a third one, drawing elements from both but distinctive from either in its own right. He attempted to fuse compositional tools of contemporary classical practices, which is the first stream, with the improvisational nature and rhythmic subtleties of jazz, being the second stream, and produce a "third stream" that was neither one or the other but one that was in the midway. This thesis aims to examine the ways in which Third Stream combined certain elements from both kinds of music. It will look into the compositional tools Schuller used to achieve his musical objective, define the technical hardships faced while doing this and investigate how the composer attempted to solve these. To do this, musical pieces written by Schuller that make use of mixed instrumentation consisting of jazz and classical instruments and musicians, will be formally and harmonically analyzed, by utilizing several analytical tools. These analyses will be supported first by research regarding the historical development of both jazz and classical music, a short survey of the hybridization of the two that took place before Third Stream and a look at the biography of Gunther Schuller himself, to understand personal aspirations, musical, social and personal background that led to his coining the concept. The main discussion, however, will be a comparative one about the definition of the Third Stream and its development in the following decades in reference to several statements by Schuller and his close circle of colleagues who adopted the concept in their music, followed by discussion on several criticisms it received by other scholars. The thesis will be concluded with a brief discussion that will relate the previous material to the musical analysis of the three selective pieces, by pointing out the aspects that the criticisms remain strong and those that they lack. Lastly, several suggestions for future academic and artistic research will be shared.