CD Lee Konitz, With Warne Marsh, A 1955 Date Coupling Two Key Figures In Cool Era Saxophone Playing, Is A Great Window On The Lennie Tristano School Of...... Más
CD Lee Konitz, With Warne Marsh, A 1955 Date Coupling Two Key Figures In Cool Era Saxophone Playing, Is A Great Window On The Lennie Tristano School Of Improvisation. The Melodies Are All Cushioned By Blurred Tones And Bending Shapes And Marsh And Konitz'S Unison Playing Is Jointly Silken. They Amaze With Their Very Un-Basie-Like Reading Of "Topsy" And Their Equally Un-Bird-Like Reading Of "Donna Lee", Typically A Vehicle For Pyrotechnics. This Stuff Was Assailed By Some In The 1950S And 1960S For Its Seemingly Cerebral Abstractions And Avoidance Of Emotional Intensity. It Still Sounds "Cool" By Comparison To The "Hot" Sounds Of Bebop, But Konitz, On Alto, And Marsh, On Tenor, Exercise A Kind Of Calmed Creativity That Seems To Avoid The Emotion-Intellect Question Altogether. The Result Is A Low-Key But By No Means Low-Intensity Display Of Excellence. --Andrew Bartlett A Welcome Reissue For This 1955 Session From Lee Konitz And Warne Marsh (On Alto And Tenor Respectively). Both Saxophonists Put In Time With Lennie Tristano Before Becoming Inextricably Associated With The Cool School, And As Such Were Often Criticised As Being Over Cerebral Or Even Worse, Lacking In Swing (A Heinous Crime Indeed In The Eyes Of The Jazz Police). No Such Complaints Here, As Support Comes From The Classic Bop Rhythm Section Of Kenny Clarke On Drums And Oscar Pettiford On Bass. Indeed From The Opening "Topsy", A Tune Most Associated With Count Basie, Clarke And Pettiford Display An Urgent, Warm Propulsion Which They Maintain Throughout The Session. Sal Mosca On Piano And Guitarist Billy
Bauer (Long Time Konitz/Marsh Associates) Provide Subtle, Occasionally Oblique Counterpoint, But It'S Konitz And Marsh'S Show. Both Saxophonists Had By This Time Evolved Highly Individual Vocabularies; Konitz Had Somehow Managed To Avoid The Influence Of Charlie Parker, And Marsh Had Similarly Developed A Distinctive Voice That Owed Little To The Prevailing Tenor Tradition (Except Maybe Late Lester Y
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