March 23, 2007: Streaming into the “Third Stream”
“Third Stream” is author, composer and conductor Gunther Schuller‘s term for post-WWII music that fused jazz and classical elements together into a hybrid of compositional and improvisational techniques. On today’s show we will investigate the early connections between jazz and Western “art” music, and anticipations of “Third Stream” music. Our special guest, UCSB Musicology Professor Derek Katz, will give us a tour of music from the 1920s and 1930s where jazz and Western “art” music blended, clashed, or at least attempted to be friends. We’ll hear music from the “Bad Boy” of music, George Antheil, along with pieces by Gunther Schuller and others.
Professor Katz is a violist and a scholar of Czech music, including the jazz influence on modern Czech composers. He has also published articles on opera, and on music, modernism, and nationalism.