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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lee Konitz seems to have done everything everywhichway and back for years. From swing era (Claude Thornhill Orchestra) to 'Birth of the Cool' (a short period with Miles Davis) and with Warne Marsh. Working with Lennie Tristano brought out a more exploratory side to his playing including early free form. His discography is enormous as are the variable musical settings he played in constantly searching for different ways to express himself. This trio was originally conceived as a duo with Charlie Haden, but Charlie asked Lee if he could bring in Brad Mehldau on piano as he much admired the young critically acclaimed pianist. The result was two days and two records of live performance.
Six standards are on this record. Lee is quoted as "Nothing was rehearsed or prearranged". Lee called the tunes and off they went!. There are only cursory nods to the original melodies after which improvisation and elaboration take over. Alone together, The Song is For You, Cherokee, What Is This Thing Called Love, are presented in a completely different format as is Round About Midnight after a few standard introductory bars, through to the final You Stepped Out of Dream. All well-known songs but almost unrecognisable as played with Konitz who is always prepared to take risks. Haden can follow, throw in his own ideas, often playing relatively spaced bass notes allowing Konitz to fill the gaps, effectively. Then there is Brad Mehldau. Given his opportunity to solo he takes off in double-quick time that does not really follow the pattern that preceded it. There is no doubting his ability or virtuosity yet at other times he seems to understand Konitz and Haden and plays with a more relaxed sympathetic feeling. I do get the feeling he is like a caged tiger waiting for the opportunity to break free (hear his later solo efforts).
Individuality with ensemble improvisation provides the listener with a highly recommended experience that lends itself to repeated hearings (Lee Konitz gets better each time).
Six standards are on this record. Lee is quoted as "Nothing was rehearsed or prearranged". Lee called the tunes and off they went!. There are only cursory nods to the original melodies after which improvisation and elaboration take over. Alone together, The Song is For You, Cherokee, What Is This Thing Called Love, are presented in a completely different format as is Round About Midnight after a few standard introductory bars, through to the final You Stepped Out of Dream. All well-known songs but almost unrecognisable as played with Konitz who is always prepared to take risks. Haden can follow, throw in his own ideas, often playing relatively spaced bass notes allowing Konitz to fill the gaps, effectively. Then there is Brad Mehldau. Given his opportunity to solo he takes off in double-quick time that does not really follow the pattern that preceded it. There is no doubting his ability or virtuosity yet at other times he seems to understand Konitz and Haden and plays with a more relaxed sympathetic feeling. I do get the feeling he is like a caged tiger waiting for the opportunity to break free (hear his later solo efforts).
Individuality with ensemble improvisation provides the listener with a highly recommended experience that lends itself to repeated hearings (Lee Konitz gets better each time).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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5 reviews
29 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Meditative standards-playing from Konitz
11 Oct 1998
Format:Audio CD
Six standards that have been touchstones of Konitz's career, recorded by a quiet and intimate trio (Konitz, Charlie Haden and the pianist Brad Mehldau). Konitz's improvisations here are as focused and closely-thought-out as ever; equally a delight are his thoughtful renditions of the melodies. Check out "Round Midnight", where the tune is only present as the familiar phrase-rhythms, while Konitz fills them with new lines. Konitz was once quoted in an interview as to his concept of "levels" in improvisation--ranging from the pure statement of a melody to elaborations on it to making up new melodies--and that he felt all were equally valid. This recording is a particularly clear example of this credo.
So why just 4 stars? First: four of the improvisations get truncated by an artificial fadeout. One can't blame stupid producers for this decision: Haden & Konitz produced the album themselves. This feature is particularly irritating on "What is this Thing..." where Konitz's own composition written on its changes, "Subconscious-Lee", gets cut off as he states it.
Second: Brad Mehldau is, to my ears, grossly inappropriate for this album. His solos are all of a piece: instantly doubletimed, with call-and-response patterns built up between both hands with maddening predictability from a repeated phrase. This does little besides showing one that Mehldau is adept at transposition and has little sense of when to stop. Konitz has a knack for fitting in in the most unexpected of contexts--he's performed with Derek Bailey and Ornette Coleman--but it looks like Mehldau needs to learn this trick too.
These flaws are not serious enough to detract from a fine Konitz performance, however. Recommended.
25 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Chamber jazz- a Lee Konitz showcase.
21 April 1999
Format:Audio CD
The album title says it all-this album does sound at times like the 3 participants are not listening to each other. This is a live recording from December 96.Haden(bass),Konitz(alto) and Mehldau(piano) work through 6 standards at the Jazz Bakery in L.A. . Konitz alone or with Haden is everything you would expect.He has no fear of taking risks,turning the tune inside-out and searching all over for the beauty in the interplay.It is often calm and unrushed- just riveting music by two absolutely top-class players.The music only heats up and swings in the conventional sense when piano and bass take off together.It jars a bit in this context and sounds like Brad Mehldau has been noodling away in the background waiting to be let off the leash.And away he goes at double quick time but it is not really a development on what went before. When all 3 play together the result is strange-Mehldau is languid and unable to get into the exchanges.Konitz and Haden bounce ideas off each other but Mehldau is somewhere else. Still, it is a fine record .Konitz on the tightrope again and perfectly balanced throughout in spite of all the leaps and jumps of his adventurous playing. Some sets at the Jazz Bakery were played by the Konitz /Haden duo and the results are on "Sweet &Lovely" on King Records.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
what you see is what you get
7 Oct 2004
Format:Audio CD
I bought this cd and got pretty much what i expected. It is not a telepathic trio cd where like minds communicate so well they finish each other's musical thoughts. It's more like a jam session with two old people and one young one. The two old people have made a lot of moves in jazz. Lee Konitz, as the liner notes so obsequiously state, has done a little of everything in jazz, including being there for the beginnings of free jazz with Lennie Tristano. Charlie Haden was one of Ornette's original soul brothers, and has now graduated to playing cds full of ballads and chilled foreign standards. Both of these musicians' playing is spare but very distinctive and inventive. I am not too well versed with either of them, but I have heard enough to know what they sound like, and this is pretty much what they sound like here. Konitz doesn't play anything cliche the entire time, just to the left of blowing over the changes of these well worn standards. A lot of the time Haden plays next to nothing, and usually pretty quietly too. He and Konitz sound like two old jazz legends with a lot to say and nothing to prove.
Brad Mehldau, on the other hand, is part of the current generation, and sets out to prove himself on every solo. When he is not soloing, he plays his role with reverent sparsity that he does not sound particularly comfortable with. I always thought he sounded best by himself, and when he is not by himself, he might as well be the only one playing, even with his own trio, because, as a particularly maximalist soloist, he insists on playing everything at once. He has striking and insightful harmonic and rhythmic dialogue with himself, with the almost jarring enthusiasm in which he immediately launches himself into double time on most solos. Haden doesn't always go with him; neither of the other musicians is in any hurry.
Although this trio does not necessarily fit together that well, or, rather, Brad Mehldau does not fit into the trio that well, everyone plays like you would expect them to. There is the mature aging pioneers, who play with measured but fresh eloquence, and then there is chops mcgee with all his cool hip licks and ideas, all three playing together on tunes they have probably played ten billion times. What did you think was going to happen?
Brad Mehldau, on the other hand, is part of the current generation, and sets out to prove himself on every solo. When he is not soloing, he plays his role with reverent sparsity that he does not sound particularly comfortable with. I always thought he sounded best by himself, and when he is not by himself, he might as well be the only one playing, even with his own trio, because, as a particularly maximalist soloist, he insists on playing everything at once. He has striking and insightful harmonic and rhythmic dialogue with himself, with the almost jarring enthusiasm in which he immediately launches himself into double time on most solos. Haden doesn't always go with him; neither of the other musicians is in any hurry.
Although this trio does not necessarily fit together that well, or, rather, Brad Mehldau does not fit into the trio that well, everyone plays like you would expect them to. There is the mature aging pioneers, who play with measured but fresh eloquence, and then there is chops mcgee with all his cool hip licks and ideas, all three playing together on tunes they have probably played ten billion times. What did you think was going to happen?
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