Customer Reviews

Spirits

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album reunites Konitz with the pianist Sal Mosca. Mosca is a puritan in terms of his playing: its adherence to Tristano's idiom is absolute; Konitz, on the other hand, had long since left behind his early style of playing, & here, while he touches on it, his sound is often pungent (close to Anthony Braxton in spots), his lines canny & unorthodox. Half of the album is duets with Mosca; the other half has the rhythm section of Ron Carter and Mousie Alexander.

Hard to know what to say about this album: it's of course like anything of Konitz's worth the closest attention. I'm rather less enamoured of Mosca here: first, because the piano he's been given is pretty ugly-sounding (did they _tune_ it before the session?); secondly because he often tends to sound simply dour where Tristano himself would be electrifying.

Certainly worth a listen; maybe not quite as remarkable as the personnel listing might suggest.

Half of this album is superb: the duets of Konitz and Mosca, the other half, the quartets are uninspired and almost instantly forgettable. How to rate such an album? Five stars for the duets, two for the quartets.

I have to throw my vote in behind the "obsessive reviewer", whose criticisms of this album are spot-on. Sal Mosca, despite a legend burnished by reclusiveness, couldn't touch the hem of Lennie Tristano's robes, never once achieving the almost levitating quality that Tristano always did when soloing on this material. There's none of the exhilarating uplift. Indeed, this only gets an extra star for Konitz, whose probity is undiminished. But he's pulling all the weight here, and it's heavy work.

This album is quite outstanding. The interplay is absolutely amazing - very captivating. A beautiful example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts - an old cliche I know but there are moments here that are almost hypnotic in their effect and you know that they are totally spontaneous and that the musicians are probably just as amazed at the mesmerising results as the listener. An example of how intuition transcends any type of planning or rehearshal - I guess that's what "Spirits" means.

What?? i have hardly ever heard a more telepatic interplay than the one you can hear on this beautiful cd. A must for jazz and cerebral music lovers.