 One of the true innovators in jazz and an artist somewhat overlooked by critics and the general public, blind pianist Lennie Tristano (1919-1978) arrived on the scene in the second half of the Forties showing a highly personal concept of what jazz music ought to be. Tristano;s interest in feeling and spontaneity, polytony and counterpoint, led to a very complex and intriguing approach that exerted enormous influence on jazzmen as diverse as Charles Mingus, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, or Warne Marsh. The first artist to perform and record (as early as in 1949!) a type of music that a decade later came to be known as “free jazz”, Tristano’s music expanded the then prevailing Be-Bop aesthetic, bringing to the music of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie a harmonic language related to that of contemporary classical composition, making extensive use of counterpoint and resorting to polytonal effects in an unprecedented manner. We are talking, in short, of one of the most important stylists in jazz music.
Recorded in 1965 at Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens Concert Hall, this astonishing solo concert showcases the blind master from Chicago’s unique approach to jazz piano. This is marvelous music by a top-rank performer in splendid artistic form, an essential appearance by one of the key figures in Twentieth Century jazz. Recorded October 31, 1965 Tivoli Gardens Concert Hall Copenhagen, Denmark. DVD - NTSC - Zone 0 - Worldwide Play |