Old Songs New
| Old Songs New | ||||
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| Studio album by Lee Konitz | ||||
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Publication |
2019 |
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| Label (s) | Sunnyside Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
8th |
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| occupation |
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Studio (s) |
Big Orange Sheep Studio, Brooklyn, NY. |
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Old Songs New is a jazz album by the Lee Konitz Nonett. The recordings, which were made on October 21 and 22, 2017 in the Big Orange Sheep Studio, Brooklyn, were released on November 22, 2019 on Sunnyside Records . It was the last album that Lee Konitz, who died in April 2020, released during his lifetime.
background
Alto saxophonist Lee Konitz has often worked in the nonet format and recorded albums in the course of his career, including with wind players Red Rodney , John Eckert , Jimmy Knepper , Sam Burtis and Ronnie Cuber on the soul note album Live at Laren (1994 ). Doug Ramsey noted that he was convinced that the nine-member ensemble format stimulated his creativity . Arranger Ohad Talmor was central to his last project . Konitz and Talmor have worked together for 20 years; Arrangements by Talmor can also be heard on Konitz's earlier albums, such as the 2005 album New Nonet . The ensemble consists of Konitz (and Talmor for one piece) as well as a string trio and flutist Caroline Davis and Dennis Lee on the Bass clarinet and drummer George Schuller .
Track list
- Lee Konitz Nonet - Old Songs New (Sunnyside Communications, Inc. SSC 1572)
- Goodbye ( Gordon Jenkins ) 5:55
- Foolin 'Myself (Jack Lawrence, Peter Tinturin) 4:28
- In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (David Mann) 4:41
- Kary's Trance (Lee Konitz) 5:27
- I Cover the Waterfront ( Johnny Green , Edward Heyman ) 9:34
- This Is Always ( Harry Warren ; Mack Gordon ) 7:28
- You Go to My Head ( J. Fred Coots ) 6:45
- Trio Blues (Lee Konitz) 4:46
reception
David Whiteis said in JazzTimes , "the title might as well have been Old Freedoms Reimagined ". Lee Konitz, who had already worked on Lennie Tristano's “Intuition” in 1949 , is exploring a completely different, but no less challenging, kind of freedom here. Rather than spontaneously creating without a prepared plan or structure, he records material he is already familiar with (including his own composition “Kary's Trance”) and “immerses himself in the colorful soundscapes of arranger Ohad Talmor.” Konitz continues to mainly improvise on melody rather than chord structure, Whiteis continued, “and despite his intellectual approach and unwavering avoidance of sentimentality, he remains a deeply soulful player, if for no other reason than his deeply rooted, tangible love of beauty. While there is a sense of isolation, a strong loneliness, at the center of his storytelling, he nonetheless basks in the intimacy of communicating with his fellow musicians (and implicitly with the listener) and evokes an equally deep spirituality, if not necessarily so open like that of free jazz mystics like Coltrane , Ayler and their students today. "
The arrangements , written by Talmor , allegedly with a string quartet , added to the intricacies of Konitz's improvisations, wrote Doug Ramsey . Talmor's notes live up to the album title. They give standard songs a lively harmonic substance (including “Goodbye”, “I Cover The Waterfront” and “Foolin 'Myself”) as well as the venerable Konitz invention “Kary's Trance”.
Web links
- Listing of the album on Allmusic (English). Retrieved April 17, 2020.
- Information about the album at Sunnyside Records
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Doug Ramsey: At 92, Lee Konitz Has A New Album. Rifftides, November 3, 2019, accessed on April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Lee Konitz Nonet - Old Songs New at Discogs
- ↑ David Whiteis: Lee Konitz Nonet: Old Songs New (Sunnyside). JazzTimes, December 1, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .