Interesting, not essential
N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 12/04/2005
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This has a winning combination--Lee Konitz + Fred Hersch--but somehow this album never clicked with me. It has a peculiar "concept", in that all of the tunes are done as waltzes, whether or not they were originally written in 3/4 or 4/4. The real oddity here is "Giant Steps", which is done first as a relaxed waltz & then (like many of the tracks) they use a metrical transition to get into a quicker 4/4.... though at this point the chords are at half-speed so it's not quite the tortuous maze of chords that Coltrane devised! A nice "Someday My Prince Will Come", a good Konitz original, & in general the album's fine, but it's not a standout, & the waltztimes got to me after a while for some reason."