lee konitz

Saw him last night in two settings: a wonderful quartet with Baron, Gress and Frisell (holy shit Sundar!!! you are so right -- this guy might be the greatest living guitarist), and an awful duet with Paul Bley. Seriously: Paul Bley: FUCK YOU, you are an asshole. Fucking awful overplaying indulgent mofo. no wonder annette left your ass.

But man: KONITZ. What a tone. What an absolute TITAN of the alto.

1. Parker
2. Coleman
3 Konitz

EVERBOdY ELSE

The encore was Frisell/Konitz duet and quite frankly I could live the rest of my days inside the music made by the two of them together. Almost wish the whole program was just that duet...

I never did get a hold of any more records with Sonny Dallas on them. But one thing's for sure- he never drops the ball on Motion.

rec: lone-lee.

EVERBOdY ELSE

-- Stormy Davis (electrifyingmoj...), January 29th, 2005."

You gotta go at least five deep: Johnny Hodges! Benny Carter!

Anyway, I've been really enjoying Subconscious-Lee. I couldn't parse this stuff when I was in jazz school for some reason, and even kind of turned my nose up at it. I had a big black/white jazz musician complex back then so that might have been the problem.

You're probably talking about "authenticity" issues, but [veering off topic here; I blame insomnia] race has been more a problem for listeners and promoters than for the actual musicians. I'll bet Benny Goodman took some flack for his integrated small groups in the 30's, and Charlie Parker would sometimes try to pass off Red Rodney as an albino during tours of the south a decade later.

The one example I can think of from a musician's standpoint is Charles Tyler quitting Albert Ayler's group over the impromptu hiring of Michel Samson one night in Cleveland, mentioned here.

Right. It wasn't that I wouldn't listen to white musicians, but only white musicians I felt could "swing" properly. I thought the Tristano school was all about some esoteric academic approach (which it was in a way, I guess) and that somehow diminished it as jazz. But I'm talking about me in high school, maybe early in college, that's all.

race has been more a problem for listeners and promoters than for the actual musicians

I'd imagine it was more of a problem for some in the 60s, when you had the increasing prevalence of black political movements. I have also heard one or two white musicians gripe about some big name black bandleaders today supposedly favoring black musicians. It always sounded like sour grapes to me, so I never paid it much mind.

BTW, I just read that Tristano apparently didn't like strong drummers, which might be another reason I didn't initially respond to Tristano-school records.

Inside Hi-Fi is worth a mention here. It's a delightfully simple album that swings hard and with some gorgeous lyricism.