Crosscurrents

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crosscurrents
Studio album by Lennie Tristano / Buddy DeFranco

Publication
(s)

1972

Label (s) Capitol Records , Doxy

Format (s)

LP

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

13

occupation

production

Pete Rugolo

Studio (s)

New York City

chronology
Solo
(1947) 		Crosscurrents Live at Birdland
(1949)

Crosscurrents is a jazz album released in 1972 whose A-side Lennie Tristano recorded with his sextet in 1949. The pieces ›Intuition‹ and ›Digression‹ are considered to be “the first audio documents on which musicians skillfully break free from the constraints of form and improvise almost freely with one another.” On the B-side of the long-playing record there are recordings by Buddy DeFranco with a sextet or a big band and at the end a track from Bill Harris' nonet .

Later, the Tristano recordings were also marketed as an intuition with the 1956 album Jazz of Two Cities by Warne Marsh as a CD.

Creation of the recordings

After Barry Ulanov had highlighted Tristano's work in the jazz magazine Metronome , where he was named "Musician of the Year" for 1947, he had numerous students: In 1948, Warne Marsh , Lee Konitz and Billy Bauer came to him for lessons. In March and May 1949 Tristano went to the studio several times with a combo consisting of his students in order to make recordings for Capitol Records , which were initially released as shellac records .

With these recordings, Tristano wanted to “ detach melodies and improvisations from functional harmony.” The themes of ›Wow‹ and ›Crosscurrent‹ are still tied to bebop . His quartet recording of the standard › Yesterdays ‹ was later rated as a “masterpiece of persistent teamwork” with guitarist Bauer. In ›Sax of a Kind‹ the two saxophonists improvise almost "seamlessly" together. Already in the intro to ›Intuition‹ Tristano “left the constraints of the circle of fifths behind”; the musicians of the sextet play "cheerfully with each other and next to each other" and even give up on the beat towards the end of the piece . The improvisation on ›digression‹ (which means something like “digression”) is clearly polyphonic , even if the “aesthetic framework of beautiful sound” is not left.

›Intuition‹ and ›Digression‹ "are free collective improvisations , without a harmonic- metric frame of reference, without a broken beat , controlled only by the intuition of the improvising musicians and their musical experiences and ambitions." However, the order of the musicians was predetermined. Two more free improvisations were recorded, but these were later deleted by the producer; No publication dates have been agreed with Tristano for ›Intuition‹ and ›Digression‹.

Impact history

Lennie Tristano, ca.1947.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb .

Initially ›Wow‹ and ›Crosscurrent‹ were published (Capitol 57-60003, 1949). Critics recognized it as an outstanding combo recording; The polyrhythm was emphasized, but a drastic departure from Tristano's earlier recordings with his trio was also noted; the lines of improvisation are clearly expanded. Also in 1949 ›Marionette‹ and ›Sax of a Kind‹ were published (Capitol 57-60013) and received outstanding reviews from Down Beat and Metronome ; ›Marionette‹ was rated as one of the best recordings of the year.

Symphony Sid played the unpublished test presses of Intuition and Digression, of which he had copies, over and over on his nightly radio broadcasts; therefore, listeners asked Capitol . Barry Ulanov, who was in the studio during the recording, also reported on the improvisations in Metronome in September 1949 . In 1950 ›Intuition‹ (together with ›Yesterdays‹) was finally published. On the occasion of the publication of ›Intuition‹ in 1950, Ulanov highlighted the “top of jazz” for him, the counterpoint to be heard there . Other critics point to the parallel linearity of the improvisation.

In 1954 the remaining improvisation on ›Digression‹ was published. Nat Hentoff wrote an enthusiastic review; For him, the newly published piece was a “fascinating study of a presumably freely improvised counterpoint based on the principle of 'intuition'.” The further the musical fabric develops in the course of the improvisation, the more emotional, but also the more intellectually challenging the piece becomes. Even Charlie Parker and Aaron Copland were impressed by the piece.

According to George Lewis , the recordings of ›Intuition‹ and ›Digression‹ represent “an early, if not widely discussed, public break-in of a jazz-identified free improvisation .” According to Ekkehard Jost , they carry the symbol, “based on the late forties the sensational. ” Marian McPartland rated the recordings as“ wonderfully played ”as early as the 1950s; on the other hand, for Tadd Dameron or Oscar Peterson they could hardly be judged.

›Intuition‹ and ›Digression‹ are, however, nothing more than "a short-term extravaganza of white musicians who had temporarily got rid of the black background of jazz, blues and the urgent rhythm of bebop and now longingly looked over at the polyphonic soundscapes of the West ." However, according to Ekkehard Jost, “in the everyday musical life of cool jazz there was ultimately no chance”, even if the Tristano group performed free improvisations at a concert in Boston before going to the record studio in 1949 . Ralf Dombrowski , on the other hand, judges that “in the phase of bebop , which was already doubtful of its own intensity requirements, a content reorientation [succeeded] which - had it been more clearly perceived by contemporaries - could have saved jazz from some of the inspiration lows of the early 1950s. "

Scott Yanow gave the album the highest rating with five stars in his review at Allmusic ; it is "consistently brilliant and highly developed music." In 2012 the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame .

Track list

  1. Wow (Lennie Tristano) 3:22
  2. Crosscurrent (Lennie Tristano) 2:50
  3. Yesterdays ( Otto Harbach , Jerome Kern ) 2:50
  4. Marionnette (Billy Bauer) 3:05
  5. Sax of a Kind (Lennie Tristano) 3:01
  6. Intuition (Lennie Tristano) 2:30
  7. Digression (Lennie Tristano) 3:07
  8. A Bird in Igor's Yard ( George Russell ) 2:50
  9. This Time the Dream's on Me 3:05
  10. Extrovert 2:52
  11. Good for Nothin 'Joe 2:49
  12. Aishe 3:02
  13. Opus 96 ( Neal Hefti ) 2:35

The recordings were made over the year 1949 as follows: (1,2) March 4, 1949, (3) March 14, 1949, (4-7) May 16, 1949, (8, 9) April 23, 1949, ( 10-12) August 24, 1949, (13) November 2, 1949.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Dombrowski Basis-Diskothek Jazz , pp. 199f.
  2. ↑ Only some of the recordings were summarized in 1953 on the Classics sampler in Jazz: Cool and Quiet . See Capitol Album Discography, Part 3 10 "Albums: 300 to 449
  3. ^ Harrison, Thacker, Nicholson: The Essential Jazz Records , p. 132
  4. ^ Harrison, Thacker, Nicholson: The Essential Jazz Records , p. 133
  5. ↑ a b c Jost Social History 2003, p. 150
  6. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 51
  7. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 52
  8. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 49f.
  9. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 50
  10. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 52f.
  11. ↑ On an EP together with ›Crosscurrent‹, ›Intuition‹ and ›Sax on a Kind‹ (Capitol EAP 1-491).
  12. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , pp. 53f.
  13. ↑ Lewis A Power Stronger than Itself: the AACM and American Experimental Music 2008, p. 40
  14. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 56
  15. ↑ See Shim Lennie Tristano , p. 51f.
  16. ↑ Jeff Tamarkin: Coltrane, Mingus, Tristano Recordings Honored by Grammy Hall of Fame (2012) in ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. JazzTimes @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jazztimes.com