Jazz Articles about Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz Quintet: Peacemeal

by David Rickert
June 14, 2004

Starting with his association with Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz proved to be a curious and creative player who over time has pursued some interesting musical ideas quite successfully. A few years after an excellent album of duets, Konitz recorded Peacemeal, a quintet album of hit-or-miss ideas that nevertheless remains an intriguing listen decades after its 1969 release.

Despite the play on words, Peacemeal is an appropriate title for a session dedicated to pursuing three different projects at once. ...

Lee Konitz with the Mark Masters Ensemble: One Day With Lee

by John Kelman
March 20, 2004

At an age when most professionals are off playing golf on a Florida course, many musicians just don’t know the meaning of the word “retire." And that’s a good thing. Take eighty year-old bassist Percy Heath, who released his first album under his own name last year; and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz who, in his mid-seventies, is producing some of his best work ever. Last year saw the release of Live-Lee , a stunning duet record with pianist Alan Broadbent; ...

The Constantly Creative Lee Konitz

by R.J. DeLuke
March 13, 2004

Lee Konitz has been playing improvised music across six decades, with more than 50 albums to his credit. He's a main figure in the music called jazz, known for the distinct sound he gets from his alto sax and his penchant for exploring.He's remembered for his work on Miles' Birth of the Cool session, his emergence from the “cool school" of West Coast jazzers, and for his association with folks like Lennie Tristano and Stan Kenton and Warren ...

Lee Konitz and Michel Petrucciani: Toot Sweet

by Joshua Weiner
August 25, 2003

Judging from their frequent occurrence in his long discography, duet sessions are among Lee Konitz's favorites. These intimate settings have also encouraged some of his best work; for example, his 1967 album The Lee Konitz Duets (Milestone/OJC), on which he performed with several diverse partners in an astonishing range of styles. The mood is more focussed on Sunnyside's reissue of Toot Sweet, a 1982 session with Michel Petrucciani originally released on the now-defunct Owl label.

At the time of the ...

Lee Konitz: Live-Lee

by Derek Taylor
July 25, 2003

Few jazz musicians have made as successful and long-running use of the name-based pun as Lee Konitz. Sharing phonetic semblance to an almost ubiquitously applicable suffix certainly helps. In fact, that other famous Lee (Morgan that is) probably came closest in number with these sort of clever play-on-words compositions. Had the trumpeter been blessed with the longevity of the saxophonist, he might well have surpassed him. But all this is really moot when it comes to the music. Lee Konitz ...

Lee Konitz: Parallels

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2001

Ever in the present, actively improvising today as he did in the ‘50s, Lee Konitz has produced a trenchant album for the now with, as the title suggests, parallels to the past.

Two distinct sets comprise this album. The first four songs see Konitz in a quartet arrangement. Featured guest, Mark Turner, joins on the last half of the album. The quartet ensemble covers two Konitz originals and two standards. Konitz delivers consistent solos in his cool style. At points ...

Lee Konitz: Parallels

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2001

Perhaps there are benefits to not being signed to a single label, especially when the artist is as well-known and recordable and in-demand as Lee Konitz. While, say, a Jackie McLean was going almost unrecorded until he signed with Blue Note and a Benny Golson was in the same situation until Arkadia started releasing a stream of notable CD's, Lee Konitz has continued to record CD after CD on both sides of the Atlantic. His output has been such that ...