First a drummer, George Russell's key contribution to jazz was as a music theorist championing the Lydian mode, which influenced everyone from Miles Davis and Gil Evans to the young Scandinavian musicians he'd work with on moving there in the 60s, many of whom would become ECM heavyweights. Listening back to Terje Rypdal's Odyssey box set after hearing Russell is quite enlightening, for example, and it's Rypdal who is the guitarist on the "Essence" recording of Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature, the lineup also including Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen (you can probably guess by now what drew me to the Russell box). On the original "Essence" double LP there were two additional pieces making up side four - only one of these, the enjoyably wild Now And Then (recorded 1966), is included on the CD due to time restrictions.
Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature, then, is structured in 14 segued 'Events': some where propulsive basslines and funky drums drive it forward, and others where the rhythms fall away and Stockhausen-like taped sounds come to the fore, as well as African field recordings. The writing for horns can be both tight and melodic and much freer, particularly when Garbarek takes the spotlight (Jan's credited as having a hand in composing some themes, presumably these spotlights). Taken all together, it's a rich and rewarding immersion in early fusion, avant-garde but accessible jazz composition and judicious electronic/tape music integration.
This next recording, originally released on the Flying Dutchman label in 1971, is perhaps the best known. Soul Note's later reissue added the "1968" to the album cover - I'm not certain why, as Russell's original liner notes state the recording was made at a concert near Oslo in April 1969. Perhaps "1968" refers to composer revisions that year, e.g. the reduction to sextet - the larger group of musicians is slimmed down to just the core lineup, who are the same other than Red Mitchell now playing bass rather than Andersen. This version also ups the tempo in places compared to the "Essence" recording, the whole thing running under an hour compared to just over the hour mark on Essence.
Russell revisited the Sonata for this 1980 version, recorded in an Italian studio in June of that year with mostly American musicians. It's recognisably the same work, two continuous sides with seven Events apiece, so hasn't undergone any major compositional reworking. The turn-of-the-80s studio fidelity does make the ingenuity of the writing and musicians' interplay come across clearer, so it's a worthwhile contrast to the other two recordings.
pw for all: sgtg
