George Russell

George Russell (1923-2009) was an American jazz composer, arranger, pianist and theorist from Cincinnati. His Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, first published in 1953, offered a theory of how scales relate to chords and fed into the modal jazz of the late 1950s. He led small groups and orchestras for five decades and taught for many years at the New England Conservatory in Boston. George Russell wrote "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop" for Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra in 1947.