Lee Konitz LIVE AT BIRDLAND on ECM

[ghost of miles]

This one just came in over the transom--anybody else hear it yet?

[jeffcrom]

My response to my first listen in the "What are you listening to know" thread was: "How does Lee Konitz keep getting better and better?"

[mjazzg]

My response to my first listen in the "What are you listening to know" thread was: "How does Lee Konitz keep getting better and better?"

and let's all hope that goes for his health as well as playing

[jlhoots]

I'm going to get it soon.

[Chuck Nessa]

It will have to be really good. I love almost all Konitz but have an allergy for the Mehldau I've heard.

[JSngry]

I dug the trio sets on BN from a few years back quite a bit. Not having the drummer was good for all, I thought. I know this is with Motian, but I did enjoy this trio without him.

[Chuck Nessa]

I didn't.

[ep1str0phy]

I think that Mehldau is very heavy on this disc--definitely my favorite playing of his, by far. Konitz's presence opens up all sorts of room for contrapuntal escapades, and Mehldau's harmonic vocabulary is (winningly) up to the task.

I guess I hadn't heard Konitz recently, but his tone leans way sharper and his lines way wobblier, way more fugitive than I remember. Mehldau is the conventional virtuosity on the record--a more adventurous iteration on the Evans thing--but Kontiz pushes things into free jazz territory at times. It's a really weird, really piquant combo.

A little more disappointing is the Haden/Motian pairing, if only because those two can generate so much heat and Haden is so far back in the mix that he's almost nonexistant at times. Haden is a super meaty player, but he doesn't pop here. Between this and Motian's ultra-minimalist timekeeping--sort of a rhythmic foil to what Konitz is doing--the recording is definitely balanced in favor of the frontline.

Edited June 17, 2011 by ep1str0phy

[GregK]

i've been told that my copy is defective, although i don't hear it.

[JSngry]

Well, if you can't hear it at all, there's a defect somewhere!

[Hardbopjazz]

This one just came in over the transom--anybody else hear it yet?

I was able to hear it while it was being recorded, I wne to 4 sets at Birdland. It is worth getting. If I recall there a few sets recorded. I wonder which set was used for the CD.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Hardbopjazz

[GA Russell]

Konitz gets plenty of blowing time, but from where I sit this is a Brad Mehldau album. When I first heard Mehldau ten years ago I didn't like him. But over the years I've gotten used to him, and I like him now as something different. Chuck, if you don't like Mehldau, I don't think you're going to like this album.

The six songs are standards, but it doesn't take long for Konitz and Mehldau to go far afield.

I should admit that I am predisposed to like those increasingly rare ECM's that are made up of the traditional sax, piano, bass and drums lineup.

[Justin V]

AAJ is doing a Live at Birdland giveaway.

[Larry Kart]

Lee is brilliant on the first track "Lover Man" but after that not so much. About Mehldau, I agree with Chuck. Although his comping is not as annoying as it might be (at least he keeps things relatively sotto voce), his solo lines here are for the most past dour little dribbles -- like a soundtrack to a documentary film on urinary incontinence -- while the more virtuosic passages also are oddly dour, as though he were saying, "I have rapid fingers but not a lot of ideas -- I apologize." That Mehldau gets the majority of the solo space may be because of Lee's age, but for me it eventually makes the album hard to listen to. The more or less flaccid "prose" rhythms of Haden and (especially) Motian are not a help (not that "prose" rhythms need be flaccid, but I think they are here).

[Larry Kart]

P.S. On second listen, Lee plays a lovely solo on "I Fall In Love Too Easily," though I wish it were longer. Also, listening again to Mehldau's comping, sotto voce as it usually is, he does have a to me annoying habit of delivering slightly modified versions of Lee's phrases right after Lee has played them. Quick-witted of Mehldau to be able to do that, but what's the musical point? I don't hear Lee responding to these maneuvers.

[Guy Berger]

I really like this one - better than the two trio sets on Blue Note.

Guy

[colinmce]

Already a classic in my household. I love it.

[Lazaro Vega]

The defect was about a 30 second gap, just silence, in I Fall In Love Too Easily.

[Peter]

The copy I purchased today suffers from this effect.

[Guy Berger]

I've been revisiting this recently.  A great set that has aged very well.  "Oleo" is magnificent; I am hit-and-miss on Mehldau, but Motian pushes him deliciously on that track.

Wasn't this one of Paul's final recordings?  So sad that he and Charlie are gone.

[Gheorghe]

A title "Life at Birdland" always sounds great , all those great records that were made there. But I never could have imagined that a label like ECM would make records titled "Life at Birdland". I always thought they focussed on such very western sounding chamber-music like kind of stuff.....