Lennie Tristano

Dear Santa

Marv Friedenn — Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:21 am

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:21 am

This Xmas, Santa, I wish that you'd nudge the archivist of the Lennie Tristano collection of private tapes to post a few minutes of free jazz from the hundreds of feet of tape preserved from the Manhattan studio days.

Sheila Jordan on NPR Piano Jazz

keith — Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:54 am

Author: keith

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:54 am

Sheila Jordan talks about her career on NPR's Piano Jazz. She tells a story of her first lesson with Lennie, sitting in with Peter Ind after a lesson, sessions at Lennie's, "Max And Mingus would come up sometimes..." ,"That's where I learned a lot of standard tunes, with Lennie..."

Sheila Jordan on NPR Piano Jazz

A Review of Two Not One - Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz

keith — Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:09 pm

Author: keith

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:09 pm

A trip to Denmark is documented in this 4 cd boxed set. Allaboutjazz.com review is here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=34770

The album is available on December 7, 2009
Two Not One on Amazon

Interview With New Artists Record Artist Connie Crothers

keith — Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:14 pm

Author: keith

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:14 pm

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33970

"In the Vicinity of 317 East 32nd St."

Marv Friedenn — Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:07 am

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 8:07 am

I slip the Wow CD into the player and suddenly I�m strolling down East 32nd Street on a sunny spring day in 1950 happy as a Goth in Gotham; a contact high from Lennie�s melody line which floats between flutters; which rotates counterclockwise and clockwise at the same time but at different speeds like the illusory and actual spokes of a rapidly rotating wheel. That�s when it hits me that �cool� is code for the detachment that one associates with being high on marijuana. (Am I the last to realize that or the first?) That Lennie Tristano faithfully depicts in the surprising undulations from one phrase to the next the stoned mind in flight, too pleased with itself to care where it lands just so long as it lands 1) out of sight of wherever it is at the moment and 2) safely. Furthermore, one listens in vain for the tristanoized bebop melody line to resolve. It never does. The only reason it begins and ends is that the musicians who play it are mortal. It possesses a beauty which you can trace in the dark with your fingers but never behold in its entirety in the light.

After so many years it�s thrilling to recognize the up tempo snare drum that introduces �Marshmallow,� another extraordinary tristano improvisation lovingly recomposed by Warne Marsh. Then follows Eric�s and Andreas�s rendition of what Lennie might have sounded like on tenor saxophone. First they divide Lennie between them in four-bar exchanges. Then they put him back together in a multiple improvisation that conveys the impression of two hard driving tristano solos overdubbed to perfection. I say multiple improvisation, but spontaneous composing more aptly describes the oneness in motion they achieve. It�s the difference between independently exercising on the same mat and dancing together.

Eric Liftig and Andreas Gidlund appear to revel in the tristano lift off in contrast to Lee Konitz who fifty years earlier felt constrained by the intricate tristano heads. Terry Martin writes in his notes to the reissue of �Intuition,� �Lee Konitz now [1996] considers the sextet pieces as �etudes,� concentrated forms of improvised ideas, that should serve as launching pads for further untrammelled improvisations. Lee says that he felt somewhat intimidated rather than released by the developed precision of these intricate lines--feeling that only anticlimax could follow such �intense� themes.� In other words, Lee felt when he soloed after playing the head in unison with Warne that he was competing with rather than bringing to completion the tristano themes. Besides, how does one complete something that�s already perfect? A half century later, Eric and Andreas demonstrate that what Lennie probably had in mind (when? and for how long?) was theme and variation (as carried out in the free group improvisations �Intuition� and �Digression�) rather than �untrammelled� solo development. Simply put, Lennie's idea goes like this: the musicians play the theme in unison, then build their respective solos by varying the theme--that is, by drawing out the implications of the melodic intervals rather than by abandoning them in favor of an unimpeded dash through the chord progression--and finally (the climax of the performance) a multiple improvisation that crowns the theme the way a cubist painting completes the subject by presenting it simultaneously from different points of view. With this procedure it�s clear at once that whoever composes the theme continuously if remotely prefigures the outcome; because if the soloist is called upon to vary the theme, then the theme has already earmarked the structure of the solo improvisations scheduled to follow. This procedure then tilts the soloist in a particular direction--that determined by the composer--much more so than the necessity merely to follow a set chord progression, which fixes the harmony but leaves the thematic material entirely to the discretion of the soloist. And isn�t theme and variation really counterpoint (which Lennie loved) except that in counterpoint the variations are presented simultaneously with the theme instead of in tandem?

The sextet recorded the �Intuition� selections in 1949. Seven years later when Lee and Warne played their newly released album, �Lee Konitz With Warne Marsh,� for Lennie, Lennie, referring to himself in the third person, is reported by John LaPorta to have remarked about one of Warne�s solos, �Lennie thinks you don�t believe any more.� Whether Lennie�s is an accumulative judgment on the album as a whole or refers specifically to Warne�s solo (LaPorta interprets it as the latter) is unclear. But comparing the early Tristano sextet recording with Lee�s and Warne�s 1956 effort, in hindsight Lennie�s criticism of the album as a whole is entirely justified. The album is a mediocre performance and the reason it is is because Lee and Warne have opted for the �untrammelled� freedom of improvising guided solely by the chords with little regard to varying the theme as stated in the head. Furthermore, since multiple improvisation would have limited the individual freedom of each to be himself and thus would have run counter to the spirit of the music, there�s very little of it on the album. Another reason for Lee and Warne to have played down multiple improvisation is that at the time (and perhaps at any time when commerce dictates to art) to distinguish oneself through tone and style from the competition was the key to musical success. The artist must qualify as an �original� in order to command the attention of the media. Tough luck then for anyone like Lennie Tristano or Charles Mingus (the early Mingus of the Workshop sessions) whose ideal is to achieve spontaneously composed group music, an endeavor which requires close attention on the part of the musicians to the moment-to-moment contribution of each, in contrast to the unspoken agreement on the part of the players not to intrude upon each other�s solo while each proves him- or herself an original.

I maintain that this Wow CD is what Lennie was hoping to hear when Lee and Warne�s 1956 album disappointed him. Furthermore, when Lennie complains of Warne�s (and Lee�s) apostasy--�Lennie thinks you don�t believe any more�--the theory they are presumed to have rejected runs something like this. If a previous improvisation is transcribed and serves as the thematic head of a tune, then by playing the theme in unison, the musicians self-condition themselves to treating their solos as variations on a theme. Consequently, when later in the course of the performance the variations are played simultaneously, they are more likely to fit together and to produce a new and richer theme than multi-improvisations which, except for their adherence to the same chord progression, are otherwise unrelated. Because Eric and Andreas strictly adhere to Lennie�s theory, they embrace and explore the theme in their respective solos rather than rival it. Then they spontaneously share their results.

What surprises me in all this is that musical success here does not depend on who among all the musicians Lennie has influenced has more talent but who among them has more faith. Compare the multiple improvisations of Eric and Andreas with the double sax work of Warne Marsh and Pete Christlieb, for example, and I think you will find that while the gears may spin faster with Warne and Pete, they also more frequently grind instead of mesh. On the other hand, while Eric and Andreas vary the thematic material to suit themselves when they solo, it�s a suitability which, however stretched out, contracts at the command of the musicians to its original thematic shape. That�s how it�s possible for Eric and Andreas to achieve that perfect balance between diversity and unity in their extended spontaneous compositions, which certainly deserve to be transcribed and scored for however large an orchestra a producer can afford.

I haven�t done justice to Per Johansson whose solo on �Blue In Green,� so sweet and sad, sounds like a tribute to Sal Mosca. Or to drummer Chris Montgomery one of whose effects in �Dixies (sic) Dilemma� is to crack like ice under the weight of bass and piano. Or to bassist Henrik Aronsson who throughout agreeably shakes the listener�s bones. The jazz rhythm section by definition performs multiple improvisation. Lennie�s theory comes natural to it. It�s the horn men who have to work it out.

Included in the notes is a photo of the band taken by Michael Thoren, co-producer of the CD. The photo sums up the spirit of Wow. The five musicians stand on a cobblestoned street (perhaps 32nd street in Gothenburg) looking up at the camera which is positioned on a balcony 20 or 30 feet almost directly above their heads. Consequently, the bodies of the musicians are foreshortened so that they appear rather like gnomes or dwarfs. This foreshortening graphically portrays to what extent each has disciplined his natural freedom in order to create a living breathing social organism. I imagine they�re looking up at Lennie. Lennie, of course, like this CD, is out of sight.

Is Lennie Underated?

keith — Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:22 am

Author: keith

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:22 am

Interesting thread at allaboutjazz.com... http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=41313

Keith

The Tristano school and time

Marv Friedenn — Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:00 pm

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:00 pm

Lennie�s admonition to put every note in the pocket echoes his well-known remark about Bud Powell (cited in Richard Tabnik�s article �On Zen And Jazz�): �Every note Bud played had a specific individual attention paid to it, which is fabulous when you think of a piano, which is nothing more than a big pile of junk.� If Lennie is talking about the same thing, then putting every note in the pocket is equivalent to giving every note one�s individual attention. That doesn�t advance our knowledge much because if I attend to each note, how do I create a continuous flow of notes? Lennie addresses himself to that issue in his further remarks about Bud: �When Bud played the piano, the musical logic of his work is perfect. Absolutely perfect.� So, by putting every not in the pocket Lennie means that every note should carry forward the overall musical logic of the improvisation. If the musical logic requires a steady beat, then the beat must be steady if every note is to be in the pocket. If, however, the logic requires suspended time, then the time must be suspended to meet the demands of the logic.

Musical logic. Once committed to it, the player doesn�t improvise the logic. The logic is fixed. The player spontaneously applies the logic to the material at hand note by note, much like a painter subjects his brush to the requirements of his artistic vision stroke by stroke.

American artist Bruce Nauman admires Lennie

Marv Friedenn — Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:47 pm

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:47 pm

The following is from an article on Bruce Nauman (The New Yorker, 6/1/09):

"On one of the afternoons I spent with Nauman, he told me about Lennie Tristano, a blind jazz pianist he used to listen to in Los Angeles in the nineteen-seventies. Tristano had played with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and other jazz legends. Nauman handed me a pair of earphones and cued a Tristano recording on his laptop. The man's style was fast and driving. 'He doesn't lead you into it, he just starts and goes,' Nauman said admiringly. 'At one point, I wanted my work to have that kind of immediate impact, just being there, all at once.' "

Lennie and Overdubbing

Marv Friedenn — Mon May 25, 2009 11:46 pm

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:46 pm

But by withholding from his audience the information that he had manipulated the sound, hadn't Lennie passed himself off as having more technical skill than he really possessed? Lennie defended himself against the charge of duplicity by claiming that the end result was the important thing, not the means by which it was obtained. But probably the more compelling reason for Lennie's silence was that the music business had become so competitive that he felt justified in treating his experiment as a trade secret. Still, if that is the case, one can only conclude that, as unwise a move as it may have been from a business point of view, by failing to take his audience into his confidence, he compromised his artistic integrity. Here we behold Lennie Tristano learning the truth the hard way that, as he always maintained, commerce and art are essentially incompatible.

Marshmallow -- anyone have a chart?

Doctor Jellyfish — Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:41 am

Author: Doctor Jellyfish

Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:41 am

I can send you the score, contact me at
dr.jellyfish@kittymail.com

Bebop Kali (a recreation)

Marv Friedenn — Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:17 pm

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:17 pm

Le premier [�Glad Am I� based on �Yesterdays�] a l�allure d�un grand vaisseau qui vogue majestueusement, veritable cathedrale marine, dont on se demande si elle va choisir de sombrer dans quelque abime ou gagner, d�un coup d�aile le firmament. . . . Le second titre [�This Is Called Love� based on �What Is This Thing Called Love�] est representatif de ce dedoublement de personnalite qui affecte souvent les mains du pianiste: deux mains, deux tonalites, des mots qui s�echangent et des silences. (�The first song appears like a great vessel sailing majestically, a cathedral at sea, about which one wonders whether it�s going to sink into some dark abyss or, its sails suddenly billowing, gain the firmament. The second song exhibits a division into two of the persona, to which often the hands of the pianist respond: two hands, two tonalities, words exchanged and silences.�)
From Lennie Tristano by Francois Billard, Editions du Limon, 1988, p.19.

Lee called his relationship with Lennie a glass jail. He said you can�t break out without shattering everything.

Lee did break out. He had to if he wanted to cash in on his reputation which was very high in the 1950s. Also he wanted the freedom to be himself. At least, that�s what he said. John thought otherwise. Lee fears his originality. He no longer follows where it leads. For there�s always the risk it will lead you out of the arena and down a hole head first and leave you there with your feet waving in the air. On the other hand, John continued, when you lead it instead of it leading you, you trim and smooth it to fit a mold. It�s still recognizably you, but now sounds a lot more like the other guys. Sounds solidly male, shall we say, instead of hauntingly female. Crystalized instead of liquified. Feels like a boot instead of a slipper.

That was John�s rap. Lennie, who knew Lee was struggling to discover his own voice, was of another opinion. Lennie thought that Lee was never more himself than when he was under pressure to blend in and at the same time under the opposite pressure to break out. This combo touched off an explosion in Lee�s unconscious. Lee would play with enthusiasm and despair, love and exasperation, sympathy and anarchy. At such times Lee played magnificently. Lennie believed that with suffering comes truth. That�s okay applied to oneself, John once told Lennie to his face, but prescribed for another it smacks of tyranny. Lennie fell silent.

John dropped out early but Lee didn�t leave till later. So for several years Lee and Warne and Billy were Lennie�s prot�g�s. His disciples. Lennie would play several uptempo improvisations on a standard chord progression, remember the most astonishing one, and dictate it slowly to Warne and Billy and Lee who would practice it until they could play it in unison note perfect. The sentimental ambience that still clung to the original melody and that represented the old pre-war mentality that had either contributed to the war or proved ineffective against preventing its horrors was blown away in a fresh gust of inspiration. This was the cool thing to do. It was like starting with a clean slate. The complex head insinuated itself into the improvised solos. If the musicians improvised simultaneously, as they often did, or if the listener imagined successive improvisations played simultaneously, one heard the sound of a communal Lennie in which cooperation and independence were perfectly blended, the perennial tug of war between group goals and personal aspirations at last resolved. The music might have served as a sound track for a production of Thomas More�s Utopia, or at any rate for a very lively new world at peace. It was tempting to wonder what it would take to translate the sound into social reality. Probably a miracle.

In any case Lee and Warne and Billy and Lennie played like a single musician with eight hands. A bebop Kali. Or better yet, like a spider. But get this. Lennie was a spider who wove an extraordinary web which attracted other young spiders. Now, we all know there�s only one spider to a web. Any other occupant is food for the spinner. But Lennie was as generous as he was magnetic. He proposed that the others join him to create a communal web. He promised not to eat them and he meant it. But after all it was his web. He couldn�t help spinning silk around them. Lee always felt he was being bagged for the kill, for the liquefaction of his essence. Warne and Billy reveled in it. Lennie�s silk was their Sunday best.

Eventually everyone understood why there�s only one spider to a web. �It�s the economy, stupid.� A web can�t support any more than a single spider, unless, of course, the spider becomes an icon and the web a hubcap for the wheels of commerce. To speak plain English, Lennie couldn�t or refused to find work. Audiences want world-class competitors--like the contestants in Greek mythology who challenge the Muses and piss the girls off that mortals would dare to sing or dance or sculpt as well as they. Audiences do not want world-class love-ins, but that�s what Lennie almost unconsciously was offering by inviting audiences to imagine themselves participating socially and politically in a state of mind where the boundaries separating one citizen from another are fluid because everyone is more or less the same person. On the contrary, the members of an audience prefer No Trespassing signs to be posted everywhere--like the invisible one between stage and audience--in the likelihood that one or another of the members of the audience will prove to be the owner of a piece of property and have to defend it against encroachers. No trespassing on Miles� solo time! No trespassing on Trane�s! Their stately domains lie side by side, never on top of one another, never mingled together as do the multi-solo improvisations of Lennie and Lee and Warne and Billy. It�s the difference between adjoining country estates and adjoining rooms. Between heritage and heresy. What an audience wants is for Miles to play like he�s King Trumpet able to defeat all challengers. For Trane to blow away the competition. But if four musicians improvise at the same time, four friends who have studied together and aren�t afraid to blur copyrights, who don�t stake out boundaries but who curl around and shoot past each other like flames, an audience will consider it freaky, like hearing four voices come out of the same mouth. Or like learning that your ex-spouse is happily married to an hermaphrodite. To a quadraphrodite! Besides, if you think such closeness is pathological, you can�t tell the difference between borderline personalities who are driven to blur boundaries and friends who routinely drop by unannounced.

In the end, sure, Lee compromised. But so didn�t Lennie. With Lennie it was like this. Lennie�s left hand was the husky-voiced woman in his life attached by means of the maestro to the melodious male on her right. Lennie�s quandary was whether to allow her to lead a life of her own, a sinister sister equal in every way to her righteous brother, so that when they sounded together, the maestro produced two autonomous voices each with a mind of its own but both ultimately of one mind. Or should he make her conform, walk her in circles around her performing brother? He chose the latter because, well, when you play a set you play the first tune to get laid, the second to get paid, the third to give the bird, and if you�re not too tired, the last to last.

I wish I had written Lennie's Copy

Marv Friedenn — Thu Jan 01, 2009 5:03 am

Author: Marv Friedenn

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 5:03 am

I would have had him say, "Well planned improvisation a contradiction? The cliff is well planned that one stands at the edge of and balances."

Notice, Lennie doesn't jump. I respect that decision. There's as much reason to jump as not to. So why not balance doubt as if doubt were as real as conviction.

I ritualistically listen to You Go To My Head and Sax of a Kind from the live 1949 Dec 25 Carnegie Hall Concert every Winter Solstice. Just hearing it makes me feel privileged.

Master in the Making, Barry Ulanov, Aug 1949 Metronome Mag

keith — Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:45 am

Author: keith

Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:45 am

http://www.jazzstudiesonline.org/files/MasterInTheMaking.pdf

Satriani Guitar Tips

keith — Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:04 pm

Author: keith

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:04 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCazHyVBA6w&NR=1

At about 4:01 I think he says that he learned the exercise from Billy Bauer.

At about 5:00 he says he learned that from the "...great Lennie Tristano..."

Keith

Joe Satriani vs Coldplay

keith — Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:35 pm

Author: keith

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:35 pm

Satriani sues Coldplay for copyright infringement and many commenters on the thread point out that a 1973 Cat Stevens recording contains the same melody.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20081205/1146593034.shtml

This story reminds me of a quote attributed to Lennie;

Quote:

If Charlie Parker wanted to invoke plagiarism laws, he could sue almost everybody who's made a record in the last ten years. - Lennie Tristano

Do all of the musical ideas possible exist and are they just waiting for someone to discover them and stake their claim? Or are there infinite combinations? Have there been cases of truly parallel developments of melody? Does the consequence of copyright law encourage all artists to put out as much material as possible, without regard to quality, to improve their chances of snaring that killer melody that everyone wants to license? And offset their chance of being sued for infringement themselves?

Sucks to have to be so careful of your every note.

Time to go out and patent that peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Keith