Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh

Although Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh shared a similar musical trajectory with their early careers inevitably linked to the music of Lennie Tristano, their collaborative recordings aren’t as numerous as one might first expect. Of course, their earliest studio recordings together were as part of Lennie Tristano’s sextet, and date back to March 4 and May 16, 1949. On June 28 and September 27 of that year they made their first recordings as co-leaders of a quintet backed by piano, bass and drums. The music produced from these sessions would be issued as singles on the New Jazz label (one title is added as a bonus at the end of Side B). Their next collaborations together consisted of two songs performed live at Carnegie Hall on the 1949 Christmas Eve concert, another date with Tristano’s quintet, and two more live dates with the same group in New York in 1950 and in Toronto, Canada, on July 17, 1952. From that point forward Konitz and Marsh wouldn’t be recorded together again until the 1955 dates for Atlantic that ended up in the LP Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh (an album that received a 5-star rating in DOWN BEAT magazine). The original album consisted of the eight tunes included here, although two more titles were apparently taped during the second session (the one that produced “Ronnie’s Ball”): “All the Things You Are” and “I Saw You Last Night”, neither of which has ever been issued (the master tapes are now considered lost). Konitz and Marsh wouldn’t record again as co-leaders in a studio until the year 1977!