Lee Konitz in Germany

[mikeweil]

Lee Konitz does two gigs in Germany next week, one in my town - I intend to take my wife to see and hear him. She takes alto sax lessons and should have seen him, methinks.

Hay anybody here attended a Konitz performance lately? 

[kh1958]

About a year and a half ago, at Smalls, with a trio of Italian musicians (he seemed to have played with them before)--he was playing well, all standards; I enjoyed the concert very much.

[LWayne]

Went to the Village Vanguard in January of this year to see Lee Konitz with Dan Tepfer (Piano) and Matt Wilson (Drums). Great Show! You can hear on the NPR or WGBO website as the show was recorded. Mostly his deconstructed versions of standards.

LWayne

[Chuck Nessa]

I would not worry.

[brownie]

Heard a recent broadcast of one of his recent performances and was mightily impressed by his stamina.

Konitz will also be on familiar grounds since he resided in Germany for a long time.

[sidewinder]

The recent UK performances with Peter Ind have had very good reviews. Wish I'd been there !

[White Lightning]

Konitz played twice with a local group at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival early this month. For the last couple of years he's doing Un-amplified(!-on-the-spot group improvisation Standards. I really enjoyed that gig.

Here's a 10' video clip from the gig. It'll help you understand better what to expect:

Edited February 25, 2010 by White Lightning

[king ubu]

Will try and catch him in Zurich on March 30th. It's been around 15 years since I saw him (for the only time so far), playing unamplified in a huge hall, with Steve Swallow and Paul Motian. That was an impressive concert!

[king ubu]

Amazing concert last night! As usual with Lee, completely acoustic (except for a pickup and an amp hidden behind the curtain for the double bass), two hours without a break... (they announced it would last 90 minutes). Two or three tunes into the concert, Lee started to take requests, and all the time he was joking with the audience and the guys in the band... some terrific piano playing from this guy Florian Weber, and some very good drumming as well! Ziv Ravitz, the drummer, did one truly great solo on brushes, which sort of made me think of Fred Astaire at his most graceful... the drums really started to dance in my imagination!

They did the usual old hat of tunes, Stella, Valentine, April, Body & Soul, but some of the requests were pretty cool: 'Round Midnight and Now's the Time, for instance, the later inspiring Lee to some weird, idiosyncratic yet clearly blues playing, the former leading to a whole new interpretation of the theme... which of course he always does... and Valentine... someone in the audience said "oh, that's a romantic one"... and the pianist mumbled - I sat in the front row so I could hear it all... - "yeah, I bet it is..." with a mean grin... and on they went doing a poised mid-up version, morphing into Softly As in a Morning Sunrise halfway through. Lee also did a fantastic duo with the drummer, on some old standard that I couldn't pin down but recognized... and to end things, they did an amazing take on "Cherokee" (and as in most themes, Lee just kind of touched the theme here and there, but did all of his own stuff all the way through).

Even though his technique probably isn't what it was, it's truly amazing to see how he re-invents himself and this same bag of tunes again and again, after all these years, never playing the same thing twice! And having him play "Now's the Time" really made me think... this guy was around when Bird was around! And he's still doing his thing... now how great is that? A fantastic night!

[Tom Storer]

I saw him on Monday night in Paris--a club setting, not a concert, so I caught a 90-minute set. Same trio you saw them with, Florin, and I was similarly impressed. At 82, he's got a bit less control than he once did, of course, but he's an ideas man, and he's still a ballsier improviser than most players a third of his age. Truly one of the wonders of the world. Great band, too! I picked up his latest CD, "Lee Konitz New Quartet - Live at the Village Vanguard." I hope it wins awards.

[king ubu]

  On 3/31/2010 at 9:40 AM, Tom Storer said:

I saw him on Monday night in Paris--a club setting, not a concert, so I caught a 90-minute set. Same trio you saw them with, Florin, and I was similarly impressed. At 82, he's got a bit less control than he once did, of course, but he's an ideas man, and he's still a ballsier improviser than most players a third of his age. Truly one of the wonders of the world. Great band, too! I picked up his latest CD, "Lee Konitz New Quartet - Live at the Village Vanguard." I hope it wins awards.

I still have to get the CD - and here it was a club setting as well... it was the final gig of the tour and they just all seemed to be in a jesting and upbeat mood and enjoyed playing a bit longer and taking requests etc. Ballsy, yes indeed! And he dares to be ugly... his sound is still often pretty cool, but he can get that much emotion out of it, it's astonishing! And often he seems to rail on falling off track, playing such weird runs and notes or notes that don't fit our Western tuning at all (microtones if you will... more like just bent and slurred stuff, I guess though), and he is a master in bringing it back just in the right moment. Similarly with the pianist... in the opening number he took a long time joining in, and when he did he threw in chords that were indeed totally "false" (not just weird suppositions, I think, but actually chords that wouldn't fit the key of the tune at all) but he always made it work. I guess in some ways this group could be compared to Wayne Shorter's great quartet (which I've never seen live so far, alas), in how they walk the tightrope. Yes Shorter is younger and his chops and stamina are intact, so I somehow find Lee all the more impressive and daring!

[Hardbopjazz]

I sat through 10 sets at the Village Vanguard in January. Lee still plays great. Even got himself into a spat with Lorraine Gordon. Lee is worth seeing.

thread

[MartyJazz]

I last saw him duetting with Gil Evans at the Greene Street Cafe in MYC, circa 1980. In terms of most of the jazz I listen to, that's pretty recent.