George Russell died yesterday from complications of Alzheimer's at the age of 86. Certainly his biggest contribution to the world of jazz was a book called The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization where he invented a concept of playing jazz based on scales and not on chord changes. The book was published in 1953 and two of its most prominent followers were both Davis and Coltrane.

Starting his career early on by playing with Benny Carter and Max Roach, he moved from his Cincinnatti home to New York where he soon encountered another great composer, Gil Evans. Russell composed the ground-breaking Cubana Be/Cubana Bop which was recorded by the Dizzy Gillespie Band in 1947 and which stands as the first piece of music mixing Bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Russell moved to Europe in the 1960s and returned home at the end of that decade to work with Gunther Schuller. In the 70s, he led a big band which often played the US and Europe and he continued to compose impressive works up to the 90s, including the three-hour Time Line for Symphony Orchestra.