RIP Lee Konitz

Another week, another hero gone, another loss to the pandemic.

I came to Lee Konitz relatively recently. I'd known him since first learning about Birth of the Cool as a teenager, but really only started to dig in over the last decade. A half-dozen or so years younger than Charlie Parker, Konitz had Bird's melodic and rhythmic complexity, but burned at lower flame. "Cool" was the label, but he deliberately displayed a warmth which his mentor Lennie Tristano deliberately lacked. Like Jim Hall, he was always "modern," but never "avant-garde."

Konitz mostly made a career of improvising over the standard standards (Body and Soul, All the Things You Are, and the like) sometimes with his own melodies in the Parker/Tristano tradition (for example Subconcious-Lee is set to the harmonies of What is This Thing Called Love,) often eschewing the melody all together.

Here's a short tribute, an arbitrary selection of favorites spanning 62 years.



I also wrote this when I saw him live back in 2014.

See the playlist after the break...

artist	title	album	comments	label / date
Lee Konitz	Palo Alto	Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre	Lee Konitz (as), Jimmy Giuffre (bar, arr), Hal McKusick (as), Ted Brown, Warne Marsh (ts), Bill Evans (p), Buddy Clark (b), Ronnie Free (dr)	Verve 1959
Lennie Tristano's Sextet	Sax of a Kind	Crosscurrents	Lennie Tristano (p) Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Billy Bauer (g) Arnold Fishkin (b) Denzil Best (d) tune by Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh	Capitol 1949
Lee Konitz	You'd be so nice to come home to	Motion	Lee Konitz (as) Sonny Dallas (b) Elvin Jones (d) tune by Cole Porter	Verve 1961
Andrew Hill	Invitation	Spiral	Andrew Hill (p) Lee Konitz (as)	Freedom 1975
Lee Konitz Quintet	Marshmallow	An Unsung Cat: Life and Music of Warne Marsh	Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Sal Mosca (p) Arnold Fishkin (b) Denzil Best (d)	Storyville 1949
Kenny Wheeler	Onmo	Angel Song	Kenny Wheeler (trp) Lee Konitz (as) Bill Frisell (g) Dave Holland (b)	ECM 1996
Miles Davis	Moon Dreams	The Birth of the Cool	Miles Davis (tpt) J.J. Johnson (tbn) Gunther Schuller (hrn) Bill Barber (tba) Lee Konitz (as) Gerry Mulligan (bs) John Lewis (p) Al McKibbon (b) Max Roach (d) song by Chummy MacGregor and Johnny Mercer Arranged by Gil Evans	Capitol 1950
Lee Konitz / Bill Frisell / Gary Peacock / Joey Baron	I remember you	Enfants Terribles	Lee Konitz (as) Bill Frisell (g) Gary Peacock (b) Joey Baron (d) song by Victor Scherztinger and Johnny Mercer	Half Note 2011