Live at Birdland (Lee Konitz album)
| Live at Birdland | |
|---|---|
| Live album by Lee Konitz , Brad Mehldau , Charlie Haden & Paul Motian | |
|
Publication |
|
| Label (s) | ECM records |
|
Format (s) |
CD |
|
Title (number) |
6th |
|
running time |
71:25 |
| occupation |
|
|
Studio (s) |
|
Live at Birdland is a jazz album by Lee Konitz , Brad Mehldau , Charlie Haden and Paul Motian . The recordings, which were made in December 2008 at the Birdland jazz club in New York , were released on May 13, 2011 on ECM Records . The album cover contained a still image from Histoire (s) du Cinéma by Jean-Luc Godard .
background
Live at Birdland documents expanded improvisations over half a dozen jazz and pop standards on two evenings in December 2009. Lee Konitz, Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau had recorded similar sessions in Los Angeles ten years earlier, leading to the albums Alone Together and Another Shade of Blue (Blue Note), recorded in December 1997 at Jazz Bakery . This time they were joined by Paul Motian, with whom they had all worked before; Motian and Haden were in a quartet with Keith Jarrett in the 1970s ; Mehldau played when Motian first met a few months earlier at Village Vanguard . When the pianist Mehldau, the saxophone legend Konitz, the bassist Charlie Haden and Paul Motian on drums met for a session, they played on this live set completely unplanned, without a fixed track list, wrote John Fordham.
Track list
- Lee Konitz / Brad Mehldau / Charlie Haden / Paul Motian - Live at Birdland (ECM Records - ECM 2162, ECM Records - 273 6987)
- Lover Man (Jimmy Davis / Roger Ramirez / James Sherman) - 12:05
- Lullaby of Birdland ( George Shearing ) - 10:16
- Solar ( Miles Davis ) - 11:39
- I Fall in Love Too Easily ( Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn ) - 10:17
- You Stepped Out of a Dream (Nacio Herb Brown / Gus Kahn ) - 11:49
- Oleo ( Sonny Rollins ) - 15:19
reception
According to John Fordham, who reviewed the album in The Guardian , Mehldaus are eerie reinforcements to Konitz's phrases and his stunning solos to " Lullaby of Birdland ", "Solar" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream" (in which pianist Haden and Motian would sound like a dream team even more than expected ) irresistible, as well as Konitz's imaginative distortion of the architecture of “ I Fall in Love Too Easily ” and the classic-sounding duo-rhapsody, in which the piano and saxophone end up. This is not entirely a low-key exercise, either: it involves four-way up-tempo discussions that gush with collective energy.
In his review of the album in JazzTimes, Bill Beuttler said of the band that these masters could not be better suited: Konitz, who was already at the Birth of the Cool session with Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan and at the "Birth of Free Jazz " was there with Lennie Tristano ; Motian, who played with Bill Evans ' to "underpin his refined freedom" and Haden, who helped Ornette Coleman to make free jazz famous, Mehldau, at 40 years old half the age of two of his bandmates, share the group's awe of standards and the idea that “free” can be soft, slow, smart, subtle, and refined. And pretty.
Phil Freeman gave the album in Allmusic only 2½ (out of five) stars and expressed the reservation that the melodies - all standards - are practically indistinguishable from one another. In addition, at least five and in one case ten minutes are too long to make room for just another dark solo with bowed bass by Haden. "Another slow-motion Mehldau piano interlude shouldn't be seen as prima facie evidence of the emptiness of this kind of pseudo-event that is all too common in New York jazz clubs," Freeman criticized. The documented music is not worth appearing as an album; even if it is the music of three men whose reputation is based on work done decades before and a younger man whose reputation is difficult to explain. Mehldau gently tiptoe through six tracks, some of which have already been recorded hundreds, if not thousands of times.
Phil Johnson ( The Independent ) said that alto saxophonist Konitz played so well at the age of 82 is remarkable, but that doesn't mean that this 2009 recording is very popular despite contributions from Brad Mehldau, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian want to hear. According to the author, Konitz is always an eccentric soloist; his ideas seemed as fresh as ever, but a lack of air made his tone thin and swampy. The opening number "Lover Man" reminds one of Charlie Parker's fragile Dial version , and a closing "Oleo" contains an exciting duet with Motian's drums.
John Kelman wrote in All About Jazz : “There is nothing on the set that has never been played before, but as old a battle horse as 'Loverman' is, the immediacy and flexibility of this quartet gives it the relentless unpredictability that despite it gentle handover creates a perfect balance between respect and disrespect and a relaxed feeling that nobody has anything to prove ”. Another highlight is Konitz's dry, gently tinted version of "I Fall in Love Too Easily"; the interplay between alto and Mehldau is intoxicating, paradoxical, although this may appear in the softest ballad of the album. But it is this quartet's ability to connect at the deepest level that makes Live at Birdland the new benchmark for interpreting standards. Konitz, Mehldau, Haden and Motian might have done absolutely nothing to prepare for that special gig at the iconic New York venue in late 2009, but they would have been preparing for moments like this all their lives.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bill Beuttler: Lee Konitz / Brad Mehldau: Live at Birdland. JazzTimes, May 17, 2011, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ^ A b John Fordham: Lee Konitz / Brad Mehldau: Live at Birdland - review. The Guardian, May 12, 2011, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Lee Konitz / Brad Mehldau / Charlie Haden / Paul Motian - Live at Birdland at Discogs
- ^ Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved April 17, 2020.
- ↑ Phil Johnsomn: Album: Lee Konitz, Live at Birdland (ECM). The Independent, May 20, 2011, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ^ John Kelman: Lee Konitz: Konitz / Mehldau / Haden / Motian: Live at Birdland. All About Jazz, May 11, 2011, accessed April 17, 2020 .