Lee Konitz

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Lee Konitz (2015)

Lee Konitz (* 13. October 1927 in Chicago , Illinois , USA ; † 15. April 2020 in Greenwich Village , New York City ) was a saxophonist of modern jazz . On his main instrument, the alto saxophone , at the end of the 1940s he was the only original contribution besides Charlie Parker and at the same time, beginning with his first recording by Subconscious-Lee, was “the most important new influence after this”. According to Martin Kunzler , the solo improvisation reached “an aesthetic and content-related high point” in his motivic work . With his linear playing posture, the “most important cool innovator” alongside Lennie Tristano shaped musicians like Paul Desmond or Bill Evans as well as Hans Koller and Albert Mangelsdorff and finally even Avant-gardists like Anthony Braxton .

Live and act

Konitz bought a clarinet and a self-teaching method in 1938, then a tenor saxophone in 1939. He first worked as an alto saxophonist with Teddy Powell and Jerry Wald before attending Roosevelt College for two years . Konitz made his first recordings in 1947 and 1948 with Claude Thornhill .

At the age of 21 he was a member of the famous Miles Davis / Gil Evans nonet in New York , which was involved in the record sessions of Birth of the Cool . These recordings (1949–50) are one of the origins of cool jazz . Membership in this band distinguished him because he was accepted into this band as a white man, although there were enough unemployed African-American alto saxophonists at the time. At the same time he worked with the pianist Lennie Tristano and the tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh and in 1949 recorded their first free improvisations with them and Billy Bauer (in particular "Intuition" and "Digression", on cross currents ).

From the beginning of the 1950s he moved away from cool jazz: "His sweeping eighth-note chains primarily follow motivic development possibilities and ideals of inner symmetry." Konitz worked in Sweden in 1951 ( Sax of a Kind , Americans in Sweden ); In 1952 he played in Canada with Tristano, then in Stan Kenton's band from 1952 to 1954; as a soloist he can be heard in 1952 on New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm . In 1953 recordings were made with Gerry Mulligan . In 1954/55 he led his own groups in New York and Boston. In the summer of 1955 he appeared with Tristano in a New York restaurant, the recordings appeared under the title Lennie Tristano on Atlantic . In January 1956 he went on a European tour with Hans Koller , Lars Gullin and Zoot Sims . Despite his artistic success, he continued to pursue civil activities in order to preserve his artistic freedom.

Konitz, who won numerous polls in the 1950s, concentrated on teaching in California for a while in the early 1960s. In 1964 he appeared again with Tristano. In 1965 he was the focus of a Parker memorial concert in Carnegie Hall, which was also documented on record, with a highly regarded solo on Donna Lee . He resumed with Mulligan and with Bill Evans (Revelation) . He also played in 1965/66 and 1968/69 with various, also European musicians at European festivals, including the Berlin Jazz Days . During this time he lived with friends in Loerrach .

Lee Konitz in Toronto (2007)
Lee Konitz in the “Red Hall” of Schloss Mergentheim 2015

At the end of the 1960s, Konitz returned to teaching. After some European trips, festival appearances, etc. a. in Japan (1972), New York (1973), Berlin (1973) and Antibes (1974) and with a few records it did not appear again until the mid-1970s. From 1975 to 1983 he directed a nonet - initially in New York's Stryker's Club - with which he also visited Europe in 1979 (Live at Laren) , where he also performed with Karl Berger's Woodstock Ensemble . In 1980 he toured with the Gil Evans Orchestra . As a teacher, Lee Konitz worked frequently in Canada in 1979/80. Even in the 1980s he remained internationally present despite increased teaching activities at colleges, New York University and later in Philadelphia.

Konitz recorded more than 150 albums, as a leader and as a sideman . From the 1960s onwards he played more and more club concerts in Europe in small formations, often only accompanied by a pianist. In 1972 he made a guest appearance with Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert ; In 1974 he made a solo recording “Lone Lee” that is still remarkable today. His reunion with Warne Marsh at the end of 1975 was a great success. From 1980 he toured regularly through jazz clubs in Europe until he was old; He was often in the studio with young formations (e.g. in Franz Koglmann's We Thought About Duke or the Trio Minsarah around Florian Weber ), but also pursued avant-garde projects with advanced musicians such as Andrew Hill , Attila Zoller , Derek Bailey or the Theo Jörgensmann Quartet . Konitz, who lived temporarily in Cologne , was also open to music by Debussy , Satie and Bach ; Together with a string quartet and Ohad Talmor , he toured with the Lee Konitz String Project and improvised on French Impressionist music . In November 2000 Konitz played the concert Prisma written for him by Günter Buhles with the Brandenburg State Orchestra at two concerts in Frankfurt (Oder) and Potsdam .

Benchmark-setting duo recordings ran like a red thread through his life's work: starting with Billy Bauer ( Rebecca , 1950), he worked with guitarist Jim Hall , trombonists Albert Mangelsdorff and Jiggs Whigham , tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and pianist Frank Wunsch . Konitz's LPs and CDs were released by major labels such as Universal, and often also by independent labels such as B. Philology in Italy (duo recording with Franco D'Andrea ), Nabel, Pirouet and Enja in Germany, Nato in France or HatHut Records in Switzerland.

Konitz died in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City at the age of 92 in Greenwich Village of complications from a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Honourings and prices

In 1992 he received the highly endowed Jazzpar Prize . In 1998 his album Motion (1961) was included in The Wire's “100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)” . In 2009 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship , the most important award for American jazz musicians. In 2013 he was awarded the German Jazz Trophy . In 2015 he was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame.

Discographic notes

as a sideman

literature

swell

  1. ↑ Joe Bebco: Jazz innovator Lee Konitz has died of Covid-19 at age 92 syncopatedtimes.com on April 15, 2020
  2. ↑ a b Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 , p. 695.
  3. ↑ Lee Konitz, Jazz Saxophonist and Miles Davis Collaborator, Dead at 92 , pitchfork.com, published and accessed April 16, 2020.
  4. ↑ Lee Konitz receives Jazz Trophy for Lifetime Achievement , Der Standard , July 9, 2013

Web links

Commons : Lee Konitz  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Konitz, Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician (saxophone)
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois , USA
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 2020
Place of death New York City