Against the (Third) Stream: Gunther Schuller meets Efim Barban, June 1978

In the summer of 1978, American musician Gunther Schuller visited Leningrad to lead an ensemble on tour behind the iron curtain. Schuller’s performances in the Soviet Union, comprised of ragtime classics, differed from the music he was most famous for: a genre he labelled ‘third stream’. This music named the ‘fusion of improvisational spontaneity and rhythmic vitality of jazz with the compositional procedures and techniques acquired in Western music’ (Schuller 1961). A similar concept was also found in the Soviet Union. Editor of samizdat jazz periodical Kvadrat, Efim Barban, theorised the terms of ‘novyy dzhaz’ [new jazz] as a mediation between the ‘emotional-sensual’ nature of black music and the ‘rational character’ of European classical composition (Barban 1978). Though new jazz looks something like third stream, I investigate the distinctions between these perspectives. This discussion is facilitated through a ‘polemic interview’ between the two during Schuller’s tour. Tracing their conversation, I discuss whether Barban's concept maintains a problematic perception of black music as the genre’s ‘junior partner’ (as has been argued in critiques of third stream) or reifies eurocentric, primitivist, perspectives. This helps understand the cultural politics of experimentalism and jazz in the USSR, relating to a chapter-in-progress.