Gypsy reedman

Lee Konitz defies convention

by Ed Hazell

Jazz is so often made by working bands -- Coltrane's classic quartet, either of the great Miles Davis quintets, or the Ellington orchestra -- that alto saxophonist Lee Konitz stands out for his avoidance of comfortable, familiar, collaborative settings. Since he left Lennie Tristano in the early '50s, Konitz has rarely maintained working bands, thriving instead on novel surroundings to free his creativity. This doesn't mean he never plays with the same person twice. He often renews old acquaintances and returns to sympathetic accompanists, but his preference for fresh challenges is a hallmark of his long career. Two recent Konitz albums and a new reissue featuring some of his essential Verve recordings from the '50s offer plenty of justification for his wandering ways.

Rhapsody II (Evidence) could stand as a microcosm of his method. For this second of two volumes (the first, also on Evidence, was released in 1995) extending the concept of Duets, his 1966 Milestone album, Konitz invited old friend Gerry Mulligan, new partners guitarist John Scofield, violinist Mark Feldman, and the duo of Sheila Jordan and Harvie Swartz, and more recent collaborators such as pianists Kenny Werner and Peggy Stern to join him in ad hoc groupings.

As successful as it is varied, the album tackles everything from standards to free improvisation. For a new slant on standards, he pairs off with Scofield for a blues number and a reworking of "There Will Never Be Another You," which highlight both the altoist's legato slurs and deliberate stepwise phrasing. On two versions of "Body and Soul," with harmonica player Toots Thielemans and Werner on synthesizer as well as piano, Konitz circles around the melody, darting in and out of familiar territory. A more traditional jazz quartet with pianist Stern yields some of the album's most surprising twists of phrase and direction, especially on Konitz's own Tristano-esque "Kary's Trance."

But Konitz also ventures beyond his unorthodox treatment of standards. He was on Tristano's 1949 "Intuition" and "Digression," the first recorded example of collective free improvisations. The one-minute free improvs with violinist Feldman and a trio with Werner and pianist Frank Wunsch on Rhapsody II take him into classically-influenced territory reminiscent at times of Anthony Braxton.

Some of Konitz's best recordings are without drummers (another of his idiosyncrasies), and Thingin' (hat ART), recorded live in 1995 with pianist Don Friedman and guitarist Atilla Zoller, is certainly among them. Unlike fellow Tristano student Warne Marsh, who never paid much attention to his sound, Konitz grew into a rich colorist on his instrument, and the absence of a drummer focuses more attention on his tonal manipulations. At times, his tone can be deceptively delicate; at others it's quite robust. Sometimes he puts a fine grit in his sound with breath and spittle, then it's clear and bright. His rubato phrasing always plays push-pull games with tempo, and the ensembles on Thingin' ebb and flow all the more freely without a drummer. Free of drumbeats, Konitz can choose whatever direction suits him. He can be relentlessly logical, as he is on his enraptured tightly-knit solo on "Opus D'Amour," where his evenly-paced lustrous eighth-notes advance in measured increments. He can also be mysteriously elliptical -- his smooth, economical, and peripatetic solo on the title track is all asides, sly quotes, and asymmetrically shaped phrases.

The level of creativity heard on these recent albums becomes all the more remarkable in light of Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre (Verve), with material that dates back to the 1950s. The two-CD package includes four albums -- two Konitz-and-strings releases; the title album, a five-saxophone super group arranged by Giuffre; and an album of Giuffre's orchestral music featuring the composer on clarinet. The remarkable strings album, An Image, with arrangements by Bill Russo, is Third Stream in the best sense, with textures and structures reminiscent of modern classical music and Konitz improvising at his most daring and exploratory. In the jazzier setting of the title album, he is just as inspired. These two albums alone make this an essential reissue (the other strings album, arranged by Ralph Burns, is slighter and the Giuffre album is an innovative gem, but Konitz isn't on it) and they remind us that Lee Konitz has been defying convention for more than 40 years.