At his peak, Tristano was a startling individualist. In the forties, when Parker et al were laying the ground rules for modern jazz, Tristano and his devotees developed an equally radical but quite different music that in jazz terms was well ahead of its time and preserved on such recordings as Crosscurrents and Intuition. Disappointing therefore that the music on these sides exercises little of the fascination of Tristano’s most innovative work.
If anything, we have here two dates that in many ways endorse the bop ideals that Tristano was supposed never to have embraced. In fact, five of the tunes are of fairly standard swing to bop stock. She’s Funny and Everything are familiar enough; and when you hear them, so are Continuity (I’ll Remember April), My Baby (My Melancholy Baby?) and 317 East 32nd Street (Out Of Nowhere). We don’t hear a lot of Tristano, partly because of the poor recording quality, but when we do, he mostly deals with these pop song forms in a boppish, if stiff, manner. Snatches of typical individualism appear on My Baby, but otherwise, nothing too unusual.
Marsh and Konitz were both Tristano disciples, and ironically they take the honours on both dates. Konitz is perhaps the most lauded of the two, but it’s Marsh’s playing on the first date, especially on Continuity and My Baby, that is most striking. He uses space to imbue his playing with an air of expectancy, even menace. His ideas are sketched in a subtle and suggestive way. No booting tenor, he. Some of his melodic ideas and oblique sideslips sound surprisingly modern. Konitz, ushered in for the later date, leaves less space than Marsh and sounds more like Parker than one might expect.
Bop or not though, there’s no mistaking the Tristano trademark on a weird theme like 317, and given the rarity of Tristano recordings, followers will want to check this album.
Walter Bruyninckx lists this Tristano quartet as recording I’ll Remember April, She’s Funny That Way, My Melancholy Baby and Everything Happens To Me at the Half Note in August 1958. No mention is made of an October session.
Discography
(a) Continuity; She’s Funny That Way; My Baby; Everything Happens To Me; (b) Subconscious-Lee (19.58) – 317 East 32nd Street; Background Music (17.16)
(a) Tristano (p); Warne Marsh (ts); Henry Grimes (b); Paul Motian (d). Recorded at The Half Note, NYC, October 1958.
(b) Tristano; Marsh; Lee Konitz (as); Sonny Dallas (b); Nick Stabulas (d). Recorded at The Half Note, NYC, June 1964.
(Jazz Records JR-6)
