Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh - Lee Konitz With Warne Marsh

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Music reviews of Lee Konitz With Warne Marsh

Music Review: A classic from Atlantic's vaults
Rating: 5 Stars

This album is one of a number of Tristanoite discs recorded by Atlantic in the 1950s--crucial documentation given that so few studio recordings exist by Tristano, Marsh & Konitz from this period. (Fans of cool-school jazz get used to dealing with grimly-recorded live dates released on specialist labels.) This is one of the best; besides Konitz's alto & Marsh's tenor, it features the pianist Sal Mosca (replaced on one track by Ronnie Ball), the guitarist Billy Bauer, Oscar Pettiford on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.

One thing the disc suggests is how scary it must have been to play with Warne Marsh (there's one story that at a jam session even Stan Getz was intimidated by Marsh's playing!). Even Konitz at a few points seems to be startled by what the tenorman is doing. Marsh could play with tremendous speed & rhythmic subtlety, packing in ideas without pause or filler, & play rings around others--he actually plays _higher_ than Konitz at many points here. His tone is sui generis--veiled & oblique--& his grasp of harmonic possibilities puts most boppers to shame. -- Konitz's playing here isn't nearly as involuted as Marsh's, but just as creative: his famously "pure" alto tone is nonetheless as arresting as any more conventionally blues-based approach, & especially its near-cry in the high register.

The classic tracks here are "Two Not One" & "Background Music", the apotheosis of the extremely complex heads favoured by Tristano & his students. The latter is a Marsh line based on "All of Me"; the former sounds like it's based on "I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me". There's also, among other things, a fine blues, "Don't Squawk", & the marvelous "Donna Lee", in which at the return of the head the already difficult line is played with extra rhythmic displacements that compound the difficulty: a real tour de force. "Ronnie's Line" is played using a characteristic Tristano device of omitting to state the head until the very end; it's also a good opportunity to hear the underrated pianist Ronnie Ball (his solo disc on Savoy, now out of print, should be snapped up if you see it). Ball's got a blunter, more good-humoured approach than Mosca, whose playing I'm not greatly enamoured of.

A fine album. Konitz's real masterpieces come a little further on, perhaps, notably with _Motion_ on Verve and the Half Note sessions, but this is still an excellent disc.

Description of Lee Konitz With Warne Marsh

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