George Russell: 1923-2009

Legendary jazz composer George Russell died Monday of complications from Alzheimer's. He was 86.

Russell got his musical start playing drums in the Boy Scouts, and grew to be one of the biggest names in the jazz genre, influencing and collaborating with the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In 1947, he debuted the first jazz-Afro-Cuban fusion song, "Cubano Be/Cubano Bop" at Carnegie Hall. Six years later, he published a text book which introduced the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which is considered the first theoretical contribution from the jazz world.