I have no idea how Uptown Records comes up with these gems, but this time they found a cache from a Mother Lode in this collection of concert material from Lennie Tristano and his stellar trend-setting team of Lee Konitz/as, Warne Marsh/ts, Willie Dennis/tb, Buddy Jones/b and Mickey Simonetta during a week at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Chicago from 1951.
You might ask “What makes this obscure guy Tristano so special?” Well, he took the basic foundation of bebop with its sophisticated harmonies and created a subtle and subdued style that was like a labyrinth of melodies and intricate rhythms. Charlie Parker ate it up; few people understood it, but the ones that did thought it was the greatest thing since flatted 5ths. This material was the first cousin to Miles Davis’ famed Birth of the Cool sessions, and pointed jazz to a logical direction that bifurcated into semi-classical Third Stream music or semi-gutless West Coast pablum.
Tristano’s basic modus operandi was to take the chords from well known tunes such as “All Of Me,” “Indiana” or “Too Marvelous For Words” and work them through an impressionistic kaleidoscope that leaned towards icy cool rather than blazing hot. The tension was in the serpentine lines and soft, fluffy melodic lines provided by the three horns, with Tristano’s Bud Powell-influenced touch on piano serving as a guiding sextant. The leader shows his chops and veritas on “ All The Things You Are” while Konitz and Marsh slither like water moccasins. Dennis glows autumnally on “These Foolish Things” while the horns form a three chorded rope on “Sound Lee” after Konitz, Dennis, Marsh and Tristano all get their chances in the spotlight. Marsh’s tone was the next logical progression from Lester Young’s airy sound, and he moves the paradigm up a notch on “I Can’t Believe…” and “Background Music” and Konitz, who is still with us on planet earth, defies gravity with his horn on “Palo Alto” delivering almost subliminal messages through his solos.
The impression left after absorbing this two disc set is that Tristano had an incredible vision for his own unique style of music, and found the right disciples to pass on the message. The fact that a live show was able to be recorded at the peak of Tristano’s creativity is something that should be appreciated to the full, as it’s not often that the currents line up perfectly like this. Was this the last major change in jazz? Some argue to the affirmative; you have to admit that at least it was one of them, and it needs to be explored more deeply nowadays in this era when, as Tristano stated, you get “emotions, with no feeling.”
Uptown Records