Lee Konitz & Jimmy Giuffre – Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre (2020)

Special FOUR disc collection of some of NEA Jazz Master Lee Konitz's finest recordings. Among the most creative and prolific saxophonists of his generation, Lee Konitz was one of few altoists working in the early fifties who retained a unique style, in an era when Charlie Parker extended a huge influence. An early sideman for Miles Davis, Konitz participated in the legendary Birth Of Cool sessions, while his work with jazz pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano - Lee was a former pupil - remains highly sought. Comprising the musician's eight original albums made for Verve and Atlantic in the late 1950s, this four-disc set features the finest work this estimable sax-man ever produced. With over five hours of extraordinary music, this collection documents the most pivotal phase of what was both a widely celebrated and long standing career. Working as both an ideal introduction to Lee Konitz's best music, and a welcome reminder of his musical prowess, this delightful set will thrill newcomers and seasoned fans alike.

Although four musicians are listed for this date (Jimmy Giuffre, altoist Lee Konitz, guitarist Bill Connors and pianist Paul Bley), these five performances are actually a set of duets featuring Giuffre on tenor, clarinet, bass flute and soprano interacting with the other players. Three songs are duets with Konitz (there is also one apiece with Bley and Connors), including "Blues In the Closet," and these are the main reasons to acquire this disc. The CD reissue is an exact duplicate of the original LP, with just 37 minutes of music, but it is definitely worth hearing. This was the final release by Bley's Improvising Artists label.

The Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker despite its prolific recorded output and its impact on jazz and the American public lasted for less than one year. Ensconced as the house band at The Haig in Los Angeles and able to record at is own discretion for Pacific Jazz (as well as single sessions for two other labels), this revolutionary, pianoless quartet crafted its own repertoire and arrangements and built a solid, prolific legacy.
By January of 1953, when he recorded the tentette, Mulligan felt confident that his quartet was ready to record live at their Los Angeles home The Haig. Dick Bock started bringing down his portable tape recorder to capture the band for possible record releases. One night, Lee Konitz, who was then a member of the confining, pompous, ponderous Stan Kenton Orchestra, came to the club to sit in…

It was a tragedy that Lee Konitz's versatile nonet was not able to succeed commercially. Just like its leader, the group was able to stretch from swing standards, bop and cool jazz to freer improvisations and challenging originals…

This intimate live program pairs two Lennie Tristano disciples: Lee Konitz, in his eighth decade and at the height of his powers, and the distinctive, calmly extraordinary pianist Alan Broadbent. The clarity and expressiveness of these performances from the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles make it difficult to accept this was the duo's first time playing together. In working out how best to interact with Konitz, Broadbent found that less is more. Supporting Konitz with supple, swinging, spacious structures, he frees the saxophonist to create and explore. Liberated, Konitz gives himself over to the flow of his ideas and impulses, his sound and phrasing natural, unforced. Not that Broadbent is confined to the supporting role; he and Konitz each have considerable space for unaccompanied playing, joint extemporizing, and situations where the lead moves in subtle shifts between the two.

Always eager to record in new situations, on this CD Lee Konitz is showcased with a string sextet (two violins, violas and cellos), bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Matt Wilson. The cool-toned altoist pays tribute during a dozen songs to both Billie Holiday and (in a more subtle fashion) tenor great Lester Young, two of his early idols. Daniel Schnyder contributed all of the arrangements for the set. Rather than weighing down the proceedings, Schnyder has the strings adding rich harmonies and phrases that seem to anticipate the leader's phrases, and they even swing. Lee Konitz, who added a vibrato to his sound for the project so he could recreate some of Billie Holiday's feeling, handles the ballads and medium-tempo material beautifully. Highlights include "The Man I Love," "I Cried For You," "All Of Me" and "Easy Living." A memorable and heartfelt effort by all concerned.

Controversial, misunderstood, and underappreciated, Jimmy Giuffre was an unlikely candidate to break as much ground as he did in the art of free improvisation. A swing orchestra veteran, Giuffre made his name as part of the West Coast school of cool jazz, but his restless creative spirit drove him to push the boundaries of texture, dynamic shading, counterpoint, and improvisational freedom in surprisingly avant-garde ways, despite maintaining a cool, cerebral exterior.

Why aren't there more recordings like Fly Away Little Bird? Perhaps it's because there aren't more musicians of this stature. The studio reunion of the legendarily experimental Jimmy Giuffre 3 in 1992 was reissued in 2002 on the French Sunnyside label and is a radical departure from anything the trio had done in the past. These studio apparitions of the band are their most seamlessly accessible while being wildly exploratory. In addition to the consummate improvisations and compositions by Giuffre (title track, a redone "Tumbleweed"), the tender meditations by Steve Swallow ("Fits" and "Starts"), and the bottom-register contrapuntal improves by Paul Bley ("Qualude"), this is a trio recording that uses standards such as "Lover Man," a radically and gorgeously reworked "I Can't Get Started," "Sweet and Lovely," and "All the Things You Are" to state hidden textural possibilities inside chromatic harmony. There is never the notion of restraint in the slow, easy, and proactive way these compositions are approached.

This unusual set has Jimmy Giuffre (on clarinet, tenor and baritone) in a pianoless quartet with trumpeter Jack Sheldon, bassist Ralph Pena and drummer Artie Anton. The music (all but one of the ten numbers are by Giuffre) puts an emphasis on cool tones and relaxed improvising, hinting at folk themes but sounding quite modern for the time.