Third Stream revived

The old idea of Third Stream is revived this month in Los Angeles, writes Chris Pasles ( Los Angeles Times ). Gunther Schuller who coined the term in 1957 is not surprised that what he had predicted has come true. The crossing of genre borders is nothing special anymore today, he says. The pianist Uri Caine reports that from time to time he meets people who oppose his interpretations of music from the classical repertoire. The violinist Dave Balakrishnan of the Turtle Island String Quartet uses another approach and reworks jazz classics with his string quartet, as they did recently with Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". In his jazz album Thomas Quasthoff wanted to show that he has firm roots within the jazz genre. Gershwin, Berlin, Porter had written love songs just as Schubert had. There is a kind of classical arrogance which does not want to allow such comparisons, he says. But he is more open than that.