Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts
A New Theory for Jazz
Author(s): Olive Jones and George Russell
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1974), pp. 63-74
Published by: Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts
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Conversation with...
GEORGE RUSSELL
A NEW THEORY FOR JAZZ
By OLIVE JONES
George Allan Russell (b. 1923 in Cincinnati, Ohio) became involved with
music as a child and played in various musical groups during his adolescence
and high-school days. His earliest musical influences came from Fate Marable, the band leader of legendary Mississippi-riverboat band fame, and
James Mundy, the noted big-band arranger of the swing era. At college,
Russell joined the Wilberforce Collegians, but was forced to drop out because of illness. He learned how to arrange music during a lengthy stay in a
hospital, developing his skill to the point that when he had recovered his
health, he wrote for several bands, including that of Earl Hines. His first big
success, Cubana-Be, Cubana-Bop, which combined jazz and Afro-Cuban
elements, was played by Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1947. But for some
time, Russell's mind had been on theory rather than composition; he found
the constraints of traditional music theory useless to explain music beyond
Wagner and, more significantly, totally inadequate for the analysis of AfroAmerican music, particularly blues and jazz. Although he continued his
activity as a composer-arranger through the late forties, he finally withdrew
from the music world to complete the formulation of his new ideas. In 1953
he published The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (New
York: Concept Publishing Company). He has continued to refine his ideas
over the years and has revised his thesis several times since its original publication.
Russell credits "the so-called Be-Boppers (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, et al)" with having inspired him to investigate the potentials of the
Lydian scale because of their practice of "ending their pieces on the flattedfifth tone of the key of the music." In his Introduction, he states the
purpose
of his book:
The Lydian Chromatic Concept is an organization of tonal resources from which the jazz musician may draw to create his
improvised lines. It is like an artist's palette: the paints and
colors, in the form of scales and/or intervallic motives, are
waiting to be blended by the improviser. Like the artist, the
jazz musician must learn the techniques of blending his materials. The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal
Organization is
a chromatic concept providing the musician with an awareness of the full spectrum of tonal colors available in the
equal
temperament tuning. There are no rules, no "dos" or "don'ts."
It is, therefore, not a system, but rather a view or
philosophy
of tonality in which the student, it is hoped, will find
his own
64
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC
GEORGE RUSSELL
A NEW THEORY FOR JAZZ
65
identity. The student is made aware of the whole chromatic
situation surrounding the chord (vertical) or a tonal center
(horizontal). It is believed that this knowledge will liberate
the student's melodic inhibitions and help him to intelligently
penetrate and understand the entire chromatic universe.
Lesson I begins with the succinct reminder, "Very frequently the jazz musician is required to improvise upon written chord symbols" and goes on to
explain how the chord symbol must be converted into a scale (i.e., a melodic line) that "best conveys the sound of the chord." At the close of the
final lesson, the author hopes that the student has found the "beginnings of
a chromatic technique, a way of exploring the chromatic possibilities that
exist within the traditional chord-based jazz frame."
Russell believes the significance of his concept to be that it puts music
back on the track where it started back in the time of Pythagoras and other
Greek philosophers. He feels that the problem has been that certain laws of
Christianity influenced the development of music to such an extent that it
was pulled away from its most natural systems toward the super-imminence
of the major mode. And traditional theory has served only to describe the
process this development has taken over the past two thousand years. The
Lydian Chromatic Concept reestablishes the link between the relatively
recent laws of equal temperament and the ancient laws with their
emphasis on movement through pure fifths. If one starts on a tone and
moves up through a succession of pure fifths, as did Pythagoras (e.g.,
C, G, D, A, E, B, F$), then compresses the tones within the octave span
(e.g., C, D, E, Ft, G, A, B, C), the Lydian scale evolves naturally. Russell's
theory begins at this point and moves outward.
Since 1953 Russell has been teaching the principles of The Concept to
musicians in Europe and America. John Lewis has commented that Russell's
work is "the most profound theoretical concept to come from jazz." Ornette
Coleman says that "it surpasses any musical knowledge I have been exposed
to." David Baker, Head of the Jazz Department at Indiana University, has
adopted The Concept as an official text. He regards the study as the "foremost theoretical contribution of our time." Currently, George Russell is on
the faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music. He was a recipient
in 1969 of a National Endowment for the Arts Award and a Guggenheim
Fellowship and in 1972 of a second Guggenheim Fellowship.
The following discussion includes a wide range of subjects in addition to
music, for George Russell-composer, theoretician, performing artist-is
foremost a philosopher. The discussion was recorded 11 July 1973 in Boston, Massachusetts.
0. Are there some things that you would like to say but have not been
able to because no one ever asked you the right questions?
G. That could be. You know, it's better when I am asked the
questions
because I notice that as I get further and further up on the
chronological
66
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC
ladder-how's that for an aphorism for getting old?-I feel the compulsion to
comment upon fewer and fewer subjects.
It's interesting to hear you say that. I feel the same way. Well, to go onI read an article about you in the paper Boston After Dark.
B A D that magazine is not-at least, not the letters that stand for it.
You didn't like the aricle?
Oh, it was all right. You know, I think you have to stand over writers and
completely supervise them, or they will make articles more palatable to their
readers. Unintentionally, they seem to color it in such a way that it will suit
the types of people who subscribe to their kinds of journals.
In the article you mentioned something about being able to go into a
studio in Sweden and obtain every sound that you could conceivably want
and make all the music that you need to make without the aid of any musicians. I found that shocking! Just think of a composer's being able to go off
someplace and make music without the aid of musicians.
Well, sometimes I think that if you have ever had any dealings or any
experiences in the music business you might find that to be a very desirable
thing-to be able to free yourself from having to depend on any other living
soul. But things are not really that bad.
Do you feel this way because at this point you are working on the expansion of your theory and are not quite as interested in composing music?
Well, I've had a very queer connection with the music business. I have
never considered myself in the business of music, and I don't think I've
ever been considered-judging by the way my career has gone-as being a
part of the music business or the jazz world. In other words, I've been quite
aloof from it in terms of actual performances or employment. Somehow,
I've miraculously made a living from it [i.e., the music business], even
though I have been a business nonentity, in a sense, or a nonentity in terms
of the business.
Do you mean that you didn't go out and try to make money with your
music?
I don't think the channels were ever open enough to me or my music to
enable me to use those channels to make a living from music in the usual
way. By that, I mean by forming a group and playing different clubs. That
way of making music has been a closed door for me.
Was it because you were more interested in other things?
That's partly true. But really it's because I didn't really pursue it wholeheartedly. The point is that it wasn't the way for me, whether it was imposed on me or whether it was self-imposed.
There are many molds that a person can fit himself into. Either you make
yourself fit into a predescribed mold, or you move in a direction that's
individually yours. But its hard to make the first decision.
Well, that's somewhat the kind of position I found myself in. I felt so
strongly about it at that time that the United States represented a closed
door for what I wanted to do. I found myself caught between two direc-
A NEW THEORY FOR JAZZ
67
tions-one, a so-called freedom direction which I knew about-I mean, I
knew the techniques-and the other, involving the commercial route and
the Hollywood scene.
What was the freedom direction?
That movement involved a number of musicians who were caught up in
a kind of stream-of-consciousness playing, very angry music and very intense-you know, shouting and screaming-with free use of all kinds of musical resources. And I didn't particularly identify with the movement. On the
other hand, I certainly didn't identify with the other direction, the commercial route, which many jazzmen took, some successfully and some not so
successfully. So I went to Europe and found employment and found an outlet for my music.
What did you do there?
I performed enough, especially on the Swedish radio. I think that the
Swedish radio was my benefactor.
How long did you stay there?
Well, all in all, I was in Europe from '64 to '69-five years. [Russell had
formed his own sextet in 1960. In the Fall of 1964 the group toured Europe
with George Wein's "History of Jazz" show, then remained to play on its
own, especially in Germany and the Scandinavian countries.]
That was long after you had finished The Lydian Chromatic Concept,
wasn't it?
The first book was copyrighted in 1953. And the book that's in circulation
now was published in 1959. I really must say that I feel the book is prophetic. Most theory books come years after the music, but this book came
during the time when the music was being performed, and in manw instances
it was there before the music was created. What it prophesied has come to
pass-exactly! The freedom direction is not the reigning school in music
now-the kind of thing where someone comes in and sticks up a horn and
blurts out anything he feels subjectively. But the freedom-direction school
did go back to a basic rhythmic thing, out of which has developed a panstylistic approach.
What do you mean by pan-stylistic?
The word pan means all, all styles, and in the sense that I use it, the word
refers to world music that incorporates the music of many cultures.
Do you think that jazz has become pan-stylistic? Is jazz really the vibrant
music of our time?
The vibrant music of any time is always music that's-well, let's see,
always the music created by people and artists who are not beyond their
time but above it. So I can't say that jazz is the only vibrant music because
there's nonjazz music that is very vibrant. But, with regard to all the musics
that I consider vital, one thing is for certain-they have all influenced each
other. So Penderecki is influenced by Miles Davis, or influenced by jazz elements, you know. And jazz is influenced by Penderecki. They're all going the
same way.
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THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE
IN MUSIC
Yes, it's hard to put labels on music now. Although a music may seem to
be derived from certain sources, as it evolves the source materials become all
intermeshed. In your "Living Time," (Columbia Records KC31490) for
example, there are references to many different cultures.
That's what I call pan-stylistic. In that work there are influences of Indian
ragas, blues melodies, and atonal rows. There are also so-called freedom
elements. Actually however, I don't believe in freedom. I don't think anything like that exists in the world or in music. I think there are higher lawsalthough, as you move under higher laws you may operate under fewer
laws, thus moving in a state of relative freedom as compared to being under
numerous smaller laws. But there's always a law in music. At the time I
left the United States, I think many musicians were moving in a direction of
defiance of laws, in a sense, in that they were concerned only with a subjective letting out of emotions. As I look back on it in hindsight, I think this
kind of musical expression was tied in with the social thing of the time.
[i.e., the militancy of the civil rights movement, etc.]
Doesn't music generally reflect how society is functioning at the time?
But then, there always are the artists, the leaders, those who know something
that others don't know, who know something about those higher laws that
you're talking about.
Well, I'm not saying that music should not reflect, consciously or unconsciously, something that is happening in society. I'm not saying that art
music cannot come from that. What I'm saying is that the artist himself may
be a bit unconscious of the fact that he's really just being used by society. I
find that repugnant. The existing outer circumstances may influence my music somewhat, but not all the way.
Is that why it was easy for you to leave the country?
I had to leave because my inner self didn't feel that that [i.e., the existing state of jazz] was a very comfortable position for me to be in.
It's hard being a musician, isn't it?
Well, I don't know. I don't know if I even think of myself as being a
musician. But, perhaps. As I have said, I haven't performed enough to really
identify with how a musician feels.
Not all musicians are performers. I think of a musician more as someone
who has music inside of him, who hears and thinks and feels something that
must be expressed in music. It's an involuntary thing; he is born in that and
has to live with it. It's his affliction as well as his talent.
I think it's conceivable that a musician may ultimately come to the point
when he realizes that music is just a tool to get at some other things. In
essence, he is this other thing. By that, I mean that music is a reflection of
philosophy.
Of the musician's philosophy of music?
Well, of universal philosophy or of some sort of universal law. I think the
spiritual trend in jazz is a reflection of that-an awareness of that on the part
of some men out there-like Pharoah Sanders and the late John Coltrane.
A NEW
THEORY FOR JAZZ
69
What about Sun Ra?
Definitely! I'm sure he's aware of the very high laws that affect music.
You have such tremendous respect for musicians.
Not all musicians! I certainly don't. But for some musiciansI know you feel that way about Ornette Coleman. Who else?
Well, you've mentioned Sun Ra, and, of course, there are Coltrane and
Miles Davis. You know, you listen for a certain kind of thing.
And that is?
A certain kind of energy and for whether the music reveals an awareness
of laws, especially a sense of organization. My favorite musicians are those
who have had a hand in changing the esthetic status quo; for example,
Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Lester Young (in a very subtle way), and
Ornette Coleman, of course. Cecil Taylor, too. And Sun Ra has been an
innovator for many years. I like innovators. I think that I tend to assign musicians to various levels. At the top level I put the artist-philosopher; at the
second level, the artist; at the third level, the popularizer; and at the lower
level, the incompetent. Sometimes an artist-philosopher may seem to be incompetent; I mean, because his thing is so different and strange, he's considered incompetent. When Charlie Parker came along, for example, most
people, many people thought he didn't know how to play his horn at all. And
when Ornette came along there was this big hue and cry, "What in God's
name is happening to music?" And sometimes it can happen that when an
established artist-like Coltrane, for example-seeks to grow and goes into
another style, he loses many of those who were his admirers.
Why do you think some grow and others don't?
Some have a stronger essence than others; in other words, they are more
inner-directed.
It must be very difficult today for musicians who are very young-just
coming out of school, say, or coming up on the streets-who have skill, have
heard a lot of music, and think everything is O.K. They have no direction
because they can play a lot of different things in many different styles.
Well, life is a great directing force. Ultimately, it is impossible for a person to survive as an artist if he doesn't survive life. Life is a purification, too.
It's a test by fire. Either you survive or you don't. You may get away with a
little bit for a short time or with a lot for a long time, but ultimately you are
put on your natural level, no matter how successful you may appear to be.
Why do you say that a person may not be surviving even though he is
outwardly successful?
Because in reality he dies; that thing in him that makes the art dies if it
isn't refreshed and kept alive. He may be an extremely successful dead
person.
Louis Armstrong was an innovator for a long time, but his music in later
years moved pretty much along the same lines as when he started out.
Yet, it's conceivable that a man might keep his same style and go further
and further into it. It is possible, and probable, that we
get caught up in
70
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE
IN MUSIC
sentiment about a person; a person becomes a symbol of a certain thing,
when in actuality that person has grown or moved into something else. On
the other hand, there are people who really don't move out of their style but
move deeper into it, ever so slowly. I don't know whether that should be
called growth or a settling down.
What do you think will be the influence of your Lydian ChromaticConcept? I feel that as musicianscome into contact with your Concept, it will
inevitably change what they do because its logic is inescapable. Do you
think the acceptance of the Concept will change the sound of jazz?
A person comes up with an idea. Maybe it's a new idea, but generally it
comes from within the person. Then the idea is put out into the world and
takes on a fate of its own. It's used by some people in the right way; probably by most people in the wrong way. Then, too, the life of the idea is
limited by the way it's used because if it's used in the wrong way for too
long a time, it may die totally even though it may have been born with great
energy. I think that some people understand my concept. The more I realize
how big it is, the more I think it would be difficult to destroy it. In my next
book I plan to show how big it is. [Russell is now working on The Modality
of All and Everythingin MusicalTonality.] What The Concept should do is
free us from the prejudices of the existing musical system, which I feel is not
based on any big law.
One of the things that most interests me about The Concept is that it
makes for a more creativeapproachto teaching.When I teach children,for
example,I generallystart by presentingthe majorscale. Now, it seems to me
it might be more challenging and interestingto start teaching them about
all the modes fromthe very beginning,using the LydianChromaticConcept.
That could be. I've always thought that's the way it should be.
Why should they attune their ears to a major/minorsystem when it's
more naturalto move directly into the Lydian Concept? Then they'll hear
differently.Once they've learnedthat way, the music that they normallyhear
all about them will be understoodas a part of the naturalorderof things.
I don't think it would be wrong to start children right there. Start them
with intervals, showing them what an interval is and how the different intervals are the atoms, the building blocks of music, whether for melody or
harmony. Then I think I would get into the basic principles of the Lydian
organization by showing them how every chord has a parent scale that's
closest to its sound. Above all, I would let children improvise.
Isn't it importantto help childrento hear, to hear the differencebetween
close and distant relationships?
The concept of the graduated order of scales would help them to hear
those relationships.
I thinkit is very significantthat you-one man-have come up with a new
theory of music.
In the way that it happened, everything seemed quite natural. It
happened because I didn't have, I don't know if I had the opportunity to go to
A NEW
THEORY FOR JAZZ
71
music school. I don't think that I did. That is, I had an opportunity, but I
couldn't have taken it anyway because I didn't have enough money. Things
flowed along, and I sort of floated into approaching music in this manner.
Now that I look back, the traditional music theory always seemed oppressive to me-to my ear and to my essence, to the way that I am. I don't know
if I went through all this reasoning at the time, but I do remember my
deep emotional feeling about the matter. And in a way it represents- Music
is very social, and it can be related to the way Western man thinks about all
of life, sort of relegating all of life to small laws, laws of property, and laws
of good and bad. That's not to say that Western man hasn't come up with
laws that are very big and long lasting. Equal temperament, for example, is
a big law. [It seems relevant to quote here from Russell's book (p. xxxix):
Equal temperament, the division of the octave into twelve
equally-tempered tones, represents an organizational system of
great magnitude and one that is relatively free of prejudice.
It is capable of effecting everything that can be done by the
Pythagorean tuning system, which it supplanted, and with far
less expenditure of means.]
Of course, some music systems don't use equal temperament. Your concept doesn't relate to those systems, does it?
It relates more to what happened before the introduction of equal temperament [theoretically beginning back in the sixteenth century, although
not universally adopted by musicians until the nineteenth century], going
back to the Pythagorean scale based on tuning in natural fifths. Even though
they [i.e., the music theorists] established equal temperament, they let the
major scale represent the highest and most glorious fulfillment of musical
tonality. They invested in it far more power than it should have had, for it
doesn't actually contain within itself that much knowledge. If the theorists
had kept the philosophical meaning of the Pythagorean tuning system along
with the invention of equal temperament, the resultant ideas would have
been much closer to the truth. The Lydian scale would have emerged naturally.
In a way, then, we might say that historically there was a kind
of diversion.
Morality was involved, the Western kind of morality. The church dictated which modes could be used in music and which modes couldn't. The
major scale came to be regarded as a very fufilling mode.
What made it fulfilling?
The fact that it represented the fundamental harmonic progression of the
classical era, the movement from the tonic major through the subdominant to
the dominant, which resolved to the tonic. In other words, the
major scale
resolves to its tonic major chord.
Doesn't the Lydian mode resolve to its tonic?
The Lydian scale is the sound of its tonic without
having to digress from
the tonic chord. If you strike all seven tones of the
Lydian scale simul-
72
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE
IN MUSIC
taneously, the tonic tone will emerge as the strongest tonical tone. If you
strike all seven tones of the major scale, the fourth degree emerges as the
strongest tonical tone. So, the Lydian scale is the sound of its tonic tone
without divergence.
Oh, I see. The scale doesn't take you away and bring you back. It stays
there.
So therefore they concluded that the Lydian mode was unfulfilling because it stayed there. They didn't accept the Lydian as the essence and,
actually, as the origin of the major. In my belief, the Lydian is the dominant
philosophical scale, and the major is simply a mode of it. And the Lydian
makes it possible to bring back the Pythagorian thought while still allowing
equal temperament to exist. What may surprise you is that there was this
strong urge in me to have the audacity and the arrogance to challenge a
system that's been in force three or four hundred years in a written-down,
well-organized form. I ask myself, "Well, where did that urge come from?
Since I feel a link more to ancient music than to Western music theory,
where did I get this knowledge?" This is it: I believe our musical system is
simply based on incorrect premises. The laws given us are not precious;
they are not universal truths. In what other fields are we given laws that are
supposed to be universal truths that all of us accept?
There is a parallelism that can be drawn here: black people in general
have a tendency to totally accept laws. They go through schools without ever
challenging the laws; they go on and become whatever they're supposed to
be in this society. Isn't it conceivable that we all are involved in some sort
of intense brainwashing campaign? So, it's O.K. to talk about black liberation and black this-and-that, but nothing is going to change fundamentally
in this society which is ruled by laws that are so precious to their makers.
One has to question the laws. That's what I did; that's what absorbs me.
When Western society tells us [i.e., black people] that we are not technically-minded people, couldn't that be absurd? Couldn't we just be involved
in a different kind of technology? If we could get some idea of and some
appreciation of our own kind of technology-it's very obvious in African art
and in the music, and it certainly must be present in other areas of human
activity too-, if we could develop an appreciation of who we are, it would
help rid us of this inferiority complex that's been shoved onto us.
I think, because of the great suffering that the black race has experienced
in America, the soul of the race is in touch with a higher power, a more
esoteric power that is a lot more durable and less destructible than the raw
power of Western society. Whether this is conscious or unconscious, we
ought to be mindful of it. We are more in touch with something outside of
ourselves, something bigger than ourselves. That's something that great suffering can do for a race. The more we become conscious that we have within
us a kind of high technology, the more it will be needed. The current technology of the modern world is an endless circle of sham advances that turns
around and comes back to destroy, like the plague, the people who live with
A NEW
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73
it, all of us. It is conceivable that we, a segment of humanity, could change
the whole direction of the ruling society if we acted in consciousness. We
could offer things that are very much needed by society; we could offer different views of things, alternatives.
Can you think of a way to go about this?
I think that we just need to gain confidence in the fact that we're idea
people, and that we should follow through on our innate ideas against all
obstacles. The more we learn about ourselves, the more we know about
those hidden areas, the more we can begin to teach. We don't need to teach
hatred of the whites; what we need to teach is where we come from, what
we are. So-that's what The Concept demonstrates to me: that you can take
a raw idea that comes to you as a kid walking down a street in some ghetto
and follow it and stay with it and, in some way, some day use that idea to
affect the way things are happening.
In a sense, it is somewhat easier to do that in music because there is
allowance made for creativity.
In any field the individual should be encouraged to investigate on his
own, no matter what theories exist, and to search for absolute truth. If this
took place, I think some startling things would begin to happen.
You grew up here in the United States. How were you able to successfully challenge the laws?
I didn't do it consciously; I did it while asleep, not while awake. The
Concept has had an awakening effect upon me. I got into it out of desperation. My reasons for becoming involved with The Concept were so shallowI did it because I knew eventually I would have to write music in order to
earn a living, and I saw very early that people who compromise their art
die-not physically, but that too-, so I determined to find a way to preserve
my essence since I didn't learn how to do that in school. As it turned out, I
got involved in trying to establish this thing, and it kept going on and on.
It's still going on and on.
Are there others involved with you in this?
Many of those who work with The Concept are doing things on their
own. That's one good thing about it, there's room enough for a person to
interpret it as he wishes, to come up with his own ideas. It's a concept, not a
system. It is more a philosophy, within which there are many systems. It's
a vast organization of all and everything, a modalization where
everything
is controlled in terms of modes of behavior.
Are you still working with the idea of relating the Concept to music
written within the context of classical theory?
Yes, the next book will have examples from Bach and Stravinsky.
Why do you feel that to be important?
I think it's of the utmost importance to reveal all that The
Concept can
do. I don't know of any organization of musical
thought that takes in Bach
and Schoenberg and Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. We can
show, for
example, that Bach is in a state of variable-horizontal tonal gravity with
74
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVEIN MUSIC
vertical tonal gravity as a sub-state. We can show that Stravinsky also is in a
state of variable-horizontal tonal gravity using a somewhat outer mode, but
still there.
Are you saying that in your system Bach and Stravinsky fall into the
same category?
Yes, but the styles and the tonal materials used are different. The same
thing happens in both musics. A succession of tonic stations are reached and
dispensed with, and so that represents the same mode of behavior.
What about some highly romantic music-say, Brahms?
Oh, that's easy to analyze. All music is in one of three states: vertical,
variable horizontal, or conscious tonal gravity.
What is the conscious all about? Which jazzman plays that way?
Conscious refers to the state where the music relates to one tonic; it includes vertical and variable horizontal in their ingoing and outgoing aspects.
It's everything. It's all in there! To answer your other question, Ornette, for
one, plays that way. Very much of the vanguard modern music is in that
state. Wagner is in that state; his melody is very chromatic, but each chord
is defined in its own right so he's in the ingoing aspect of that state. Berg is
in the outgoing state. The Concept allows us to categorize all those kinds of
musics and show which states they're in and the ingoing or outgoing aspects
of the states. We can even show what the musics could have done and
didn't do.
To return to something we were discussing earlier, I wonder how it
would be possible to create an atmosphere where young people could grow
up in the kind of freedom that would permit them a closeness with themselves?
Well, there are systems of education based on educating the whole
person and bringing out creativity-like the Rudolf Steiner School, here in
Boston it's called the Waldorf School, and the Montessori to some extent. A
move in the right direction for us is to have black history taught in schools
and universities, except there is just not enough of it going on.
I think I understand your Concept in its basic philosophical terms. Your
study puts you in a class with the great philosophers and scientists.
I don't know about all that! But I am into philosophy. Gurdjieff is a particular favorite of mine; he had a fantastic mind. There are several books
containing his ideas; one is In Search of the Miraculous by Ouspensky, who
studied with Gurdjieff. I guess he'd be classified as caucasian, but he was
one of the darker brothers and came from a soulful part of the world.