Redefining a Genre – The Recent Collaborations between Mark-Anthony Turnage and John Scofield

‘Mark-Anthony has created a work (Blood on the Floor) which will stand as a future reference for written and improvised music.’ In this paper I will argue that the recent collaborations between composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and guitarist/composer John Scofield, which include the work just mentioned, Blood on the Floor and more recently, Scorched, have set new benchmarks for those working in classical/jazz fusion, often referred to as Third Stream, and in the process have redefined the genre for its time, updating the language in terms of thematic integration, harmonic sophistication, accommodation of written and improvised elements and instrumentation. I will further argue that the unique circumstances of Turnage’s compositional development and his particular set of musical influences, associations, and working relationships with musicians at the absolute peak of their profession in both the classical and jazz worlds, made him uniquely placed to write a work such as Blood on the Floor.