Search - Lee Konitz :: Subconscious-Lee

Brilliant solos by Konitz, Tristano, Bauer move this beyond

Matthew Watters | Vietnam | 02/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I happily gave the other reviewer (jive rhapsodist) a helpful vote because his review is so funny and insightful. He doesn't just praise this music. He buries it. That said, I can't help but feel that all the music that came out of the "schools" of Lennie Tristano and Hall Overton in the late 1940s-early 1950s (see, for instance, the work of Teddy Charles) suffers from just this very sort of over-analysis, all of these over-technical explanations of why the playing doesn't adhere to typical chord changes. While it's the experiments in polytonality and the explorations in sponteneous composition and "free" improvisation nearly a decade before Ornette Coleman exploded on the scene that makes the likes of Tristano and Overton historically significant, what's it like for non-musicians listening to this music? Is Subconscious-Lee a disc that I would only listen to once or twice, out of historical interest (like, I confess, I do with Charlie Parker), or one that I actually enjoy coming back to from time to time? In this case, it's the latter. The music is still married to the simple time structures and instrumental line-ups of Sidney Bechet, with a guitar-bass-drums rhythm section chugging out a simple beat, but the slight emotional abstraction and cool, soul-less tone of the principals is highly appealing, much like the work of Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck (or Paul Desmond and Jim Hall). That the improvisations also have a slightly spikey feeling that anticipates the avant garde gives this music a certain cerebral appeal, as well. The feeling may not be love, but it is rather like putting on your black turtleneck and hanging out with some really hip, intellectual friends. What's wrong with that?"