Lee Konitz

[rhythmaning]

I saw one of the jazz greats, Lee Konitz, play in London last week. Konitz’ career spans seven decades – he was one of the players behind one of jazz’s most famous recordings, “Birth of the Cool” in 1957.

He played four shows over two nights at Pizza Express; the intimate atmosphere suited him. In a quartet with young pianist Dan Tepfer (Konitz and Tepfer have just released a CD of duos), bassist Mike Janisch and drummer Jeff Williams, Konitz stuck mainly to standards – he said – but he deconstructed and rearranged them so that they became new pieces.

Last Wednesday, his early show comprised of familiar tunes made new and viewed from a fresh perspective. There were tunes by Miles Davis (“Solar”, which Konitz said Davis appropriated from Chuck Wayne), versions of “Cherokee” and a fast “Lullaby of Birdland”, and a Monk tune; all sounded new and fresh – a hard trick for such well known repertoire. Konitz took an oblique take on each number, abstracting them in surprising and inventive ways.

The first show was so good that we took up the offer to stay for the second, which surprisingly still had seats available; apparently the others shows were all sold out. Sticking with standards – “Get Happy” and “Oleo” featured this time around – Konitz was once more oblique, making the tunes sound even more abstract. Pianist Tepfer really came into his own with some extended solos and a couple of excellent duets with Konitz. The second show was even better than the first, engaging and exciting by turns.

Comments

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

*waves hi* Tis Mike from the meet with <lj user="miss_s_b" last night!

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Welcome! I have been much less active on LJ recently - I think the part of my brain that responded to LJ is busy playing on Twitter! LJ seems to have become home for my discussions of art and jazz shows I go to and my photographs (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhythmaning/). I also write about non-personal, business and management ideas on my Wordpress blog (http://patrickhadfield.wordpress.com/).

[nimoloth.livejournal.com]

We saw him last year at the Jazz Festival - we weren't that impressed actually. It was completely meandering and mellow - there wasn't any variation in tempo, volume or style the entire gig. He was working around standards, but in such a way that we couldn't recognise any of them. It was basically an entire set of mellow improvisation and we got quite bored. I'm sure it's fascinating from his point of view to explore the music that way, have been playing it all for as long as he has, but it wasn't fascinating for the audience!

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I wish I could work out why I enjoy some gigs and not others!

I found his playing in May quite captivating - particularly the interplay with the pianist.

I think venue might have a lot to do with it - I guess that is another post...