Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre

Lee Konitz, Jimmy Giuffre, Lee Konitz & the Brazilian Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 5, 1996)
• Original Release Date: November 5, 1996
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B0000046ZG
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #450,084 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. 'Round Midnight

2. The Daffodil's Smile

3. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)

4. Music For Alto Saxophone And Strings Part 1

5. Music For Alto Saxophone And Strings Part 2

6. Music For Alto Saxophone And Strings Part 3

7. What's New?

8. Blues For Our Children

9. An Image Of Man Part 1-7

10. Terrisita

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Palo Alto

2. When Your Lover Has Gone

3. Cork 'N' Bib

4. Stomp'm Outa' Nothin'

5. Someone To Watch Over Me

6. Uncharted

7. Moonlight In Vermont

8. The Song Is You

9. Piece For Clarinet And String Orchestra Movement 1

10. Piece For Clarinet And String Orchestra Movement 2

See all 29 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Two Lee Konitz with Jimmy Giuffre collaborations reunited here on one CD. In Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre, Jimmy contributed as soloist and arranger of a five-piece saxophone section. The thoughtful, contrapuntal writing creates a delicate mood, where everybody gets a chance to blow, and the engaging work of Konitz, Bill Evans, and Warne Marsh provides extremely rewarding moments. On You and Lee, Jimmy employed only a brass section and rhythm to back the altoist. He chose to keep the brass tightly muted, working always as a section, with no individual solos. In all, these sessions are a skillful, fascinating mixture of tonal beauty and emotional improvising. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag but an important set, February 25, 2001

By 

N. Dorward "obsessive reviewer" (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre (Audio CD)

This 2-CD set is redolent of a time in the 1950s when jazz & "serious" classical music sometimes collided. This is, I suppose, "Third Stream", to use Gunther Schuller's term, though the key reference-point here is actually the Stan Kenton band, whose arranger Bill Russo contributes charts to Lee Konitz's date _An Image_. The other albums here are _Free Forms_, by the arranger Ralph Burns (best known for his work for Woody Herman, notably "Early Autumn"); _Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre_; and Jimmy Giuffre's _Piece for Clarinet and String Orchestra/Mobiles_. These are all quite different albums, so a quick rundown:

_An Image_ is notable for its almost shocking spareness. It is a jazz group plus strings, but its austerity avoids the cloying sound of most jazz-with-strings projects--think Bartok instead. There are three reworked standards--"Round Midnight", "What's New" and "It Got It Bad and That Ain't Good"--and a number of Russo originals; the mood is generally dark, the tempos slow. Konitz's alto playing is some of his best of this period--as always in his career, he rises to a challenge. He's still got the pure line going that he developed under Tristano, but with a newly impassioned & dramatic delivery.

The Ralph Burns session isn't of much interest--cloyingly precious dance music, mostly--but on a few tracks Lee Konitz is featured, which raises the game a lot.

The meeting with Giuffre is actually the least typical date on this set, in the sense that it's the only "straightahead" jazz date. It also has a remarkable lineup: a young Bill Evans on piano, & a sax quintet of Konitz, Giuffre (on baritone), Hal McKusick, Ted Brown & Warne Marsh. There's a mix of standards (including a beautiful acapella "Darn That Dream") & some blues-oriented originals. This is a remarkable album, with some nicely adventurous arrangements by Giuffre; the album climaxes on a wonderful flagwaver, "The Song Is You". Fans of mainstream jazz will find this the section of this reissue that appeals most to them.

The last session here is the most distant from "jazz" in the narrow sense--it features Giuffre and a string orchestra, no jazz rhythm section. It has two suites of compositions: the first is a fully-notated piece which is an ambitious "serious" composition again showing the influence of Bartok; the second is a series of brief clarinet improvisations against simple string backdrops (sustained chords, trills, &c). Both pieces are surprisingly effective.

This album won't appeal to all tastes; those who dislike "serious" 20th-c. classical music would do well to stay away (though they would sadly miss the fine & entirely jazzy Konitz/Giuffre encounter). But it actually remains a very listenable set of performances, & like the recent (& already deleted) reissue of _The Birth of the Third Stream_ suggests that such 1950s crossover experiments deserve reconsideration. This is vital, exploratory music, & one can only fondly contemplate the days when a major record label like Verve would hire classical orchestras to permit creative musicians to do this kind of thing. -- Meanwhile Konitz has returned to this format again, in the recent disc with the Axis String Quartet. & the ideals of the Third Stream have shown unexpected staying-power, in everything from the work of Ran Blake to the calm genre-mixing of musicians like Dave Douglas and Don Byron.