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LEE KONITZ
NEW YORK - LOS ANGELES - BOSTON
1947-1961

“The recorded work of a Lee Konitz, however, places him amongst the finest soloists on the alto saxophone.” André Hodeir (1)

The youngest of three children in a family of Jewish émigrés, Léon “Lee” Konitz was born on October 13, 1927 in Chicago, where his parents had met and married. His father was Austrian, his mother from Russia, and they were understanding parents who encouraged young Lee – he had little enthusiasm for his schooling – when he showed his early preference for music: they bought him a clarinet as a birthday present when he turned eleven. Lee Konitz had liked listening to Benny Goodman on the radio... A year later, Lee picked up a tenor saxophone out of admiration for Lester Young, and he took lessons from Lou Henig whose other pupils included Johnny Griffin and Eddie Harris. Then Konitz discovered the alto, and became fascinated by some of the musicians who blew that horn in the era’s big bands, among them Johnny Hodges, Roy Eldridge and Willie Smith. Later Konitz would admit to also being influenced by Benny Carter, especially the latter’s solo on “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me.” The young Konitz found work playing in local dance bands, and quickly decided on a professional career: in 1945 he replaced Charlie Ventura in the orchestra led by Teddy Powell, and then until 1947 he began playing episodically in Jerry Wald’s band.

During the same period (1946) he met pianist Lennie Tristano, and Lee would become one of his best pupils, alongside musicians who would later become his partners: Warne Marsh, for example, and also Billy Bauer, Sal Mosca, Arnold Fishkin and Don Ferrara. Konitz also played in a bar with Tristano before he left to tour with Claude Thornhill and make his first recordings (CD1/1) with the Thornhill band, where he made friends with its arrangers, Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans, no less...

In September 1948, Lee Konitz went to work with Miles Davis (Gerry Mulligan had recommended him to the trumpeter), and a year later he found himself at the Royal Roost in New York, playing with a band that had an unusual line-up (trumpet, alto and baritone sax, French horn, tuba, piano, bass and drums). On 21 January 1949, this nonet recorded four sides for the Capitol label. Four more would follow on April 22, completed by a final session (9 March 1950) with a few changes in personnel. Lee played on all three sessions (CD1/9) and they would soon be released as the famous album entitled “Birth of the Cool”, which clearly identified the emergence of a new style in the jazz world. It also caused some controversy, especially among African-American musicians who were disturbed by the number of white players in the orchestra... Miles Davis, never one to be overly concerned with such opinions, drily replied to critics by saying, “If I could find someone, anyone, who can play like Lee Konitz, I’d hire him.” (2) In a lengthy interview with Andy Hamilton (3), Konitz admitted, not without humour, that “I thought it was Mulligan’s group I was joining!”

The year 1949 turned out to be a watershed for him. As a member of the Lennie Tristano quintet, he appeared and recorded with him and, particularly, made his debuts leading his own group. Several sides were recorded (CD1/2,7-8) for the New Jazz label owned by Bob Weinstock, whose first sessions these were. They were issued on a few 78s before being grouped together on a 10” LP that was the first reference in the catalogue of Prestige (PRLP 101), and then reunited on a Prestige 12” that also contained the April 7 session of 1950 (CD1/10 à 13). In parallel, still in the company of Tristano, he recorded seven titles for the Capitol label (CD1/3-4) in a session where the pianist had decided to further explore his own musical concepts; those tracks (CD1/5-6) represented the first experiments in a form of music to which people would later refer as free jazz. However, while not disowning any of his closeness to Tristano or Warne Marsh, Konitz aimed to forge his own identity by developing his own musical ideas even if he admired Tristano, and avoid alienating his style to one that dominated in many of his fellow-saxophonists during that period, i.e., the style of a certain Charlie Parker.

In March 1951 he met up with Miles Davis again for a new session (CD1/14-15) and, as a kind of prelude to what would become a familiar habit, he recorded a fine duet with guitarist Billy Bauer (CD1/16). In 1952 he began a two-year stay in the orchestra of Stan Kenton (CD2/1), and when he wasn’t touring he played and recorded in Los Angeles in 1953 (with Gerry Mulligan) for Pacific Jazz (CD1/17-18). At the end of that year he went to France with Kenton, and took advantage of that to make a record for Vogue in Paris with pianist Henri Renaud (CD1/19).

On leaving Kenton he decided to form a quartet, taking it to play in New York and also in Boston where his performances were released on George Wein’s Storyville label (CD1/20 & CD2/2-3). Back in New York he worked with Tristano again, notably at a gig in the Sing Song Room of the Confucius Restaurant, out of which came a recording that remained unreleased until its appearance on Atlantic years later (in 1981). Then came an intensely creative period that shone by the integrity of Lee’s loyalty to his stylistic choices, even if they confined him to the margins in the ears of audiences who found him too abstract. In one interview he gave, he confided: “I’ve never had any real success with the public because I go from one thing to another. I’ve always kept on searching, trying new things.” (4) From 1951 until 1957, Konitz would regularly record for Atlantic and produce a series of albums that began with Tristano (CD2/4) before continuing under his own name accompanied by Warne Marsh (CD2/5), Sal Mosca (for which Lee decided to play tenor, CD2/6), and also Don Ferrara (CD2/7); the three musicians were his principal partners in the recordings with Tristano. In Lee’s liner notes for his album “The Real Lee Konitz”, the saxophonist explained his choice of material: “I have never been concerned with finding new tunes to play. I often feel that I could play and record the same tunes over and over and still come up with fresh variations.” Frequent visits to Europe would also allow him to form new friendships and play with a number of musicians who admired him (among them Hans Koller and Lars Gullin). Encounters like these would continue to multiply throughout his career.

In the spring of 1957, Konitz joined Verve, the label owned by Norman Granz, and they began developing projects in different formats: with a quintet (CD2/8), a quartet (CD2/9), strings (CD2/11), an octet and a ten-piece group playing arrangements by Jimmy Giuffre (CD2/12-13), and also a trio recording (CD2/14). He was highly active throughout the period, playing and recording with Gerry Mulligan (CD2/10) and, in February and March 1959, appearing at the Half Note in New York fronting a quintet that also featured Warne Marsh, Bill Evans, Jimmy Garrison and Paul Motian. The concerts were actually recorded for Verve by the bass-player Peter Ind, but they were not immediately released: Lennie Tristano considered that only the improvisations of Warne Marsh were of any interest... However, Tristano did produce a version of the music in which he redacted the contributions of Konitz and Evans, and it was published in 1974 by the Revelation label (5). Lee Konitz did not bear a grudge, and supervised an uncut release (6) for Verve in 1994. Konitz would play with his friend Tristano again, notably again at the Half Note in June 1964.

From the sixties on, Konitz remained faithful to his aesthetic choices in music, never ceasing to evolve and experiment in the course of many new encounters in both America and Europe. There were duos with Joe Henderson, Richie Kamuca, Martial Solal, Michel Petrucciani, Gil Evans and many others; there were collaborations with Attila Zoller, Albert Mangelsdorf, Enrico Rava, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Anthony Braxton and Andrew Hill; then with Warne Marsh again (1975-76). A decade later (1986), he played in France with the “Cordes et Lames” group led by guitarist Dominique Cravic, and in 1992 he received Denmark’s Jazzpar Award. Other encounters included recordings with Brad Mehldau and Charlie Haden in 2009, and three years later he found himself alongside Bill Frisell, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. The Konitz discography is extremely prolific, with over a hundred albums that show no signs of weakness in a saxophonist who constantly renewed his inspiration and ability to surprise. Only pneumonia and the coronavirus would interrupt his appetite; they put an end to a career that had always been exemplary, to say the least. Lee Konitz passed away on 15 April 2020 in New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital.

Jean-Paul RICARD

© 2024 FRÉMEAUX & ASSOCIÉS

Notes :

(1) André Hodeir, in “Hommes et Problèmes du jazz”, Paris, Flammarion 1954, Parenthèses 1981

(2) In an interview Lee Konitz/Al Levitt, “Jazz Magazine” N°285, April 1980

(3) Andy Hamilton, Lee Konitz, “Conversations on the Improviser’s Art”, The University Of Michigan Press, 2007

(4) in “L’Europe des 12 de Lee Konitz”, interview in “Jazz Magazine” N°410, December 1991

(5) Warne Marsh, “The Art Of Improvising”, Revelation 22 & 27 (LP)

(6) Lee Konitz, “Live At The Half Note”, Verve 521 659