Costumes Are Mandatory

IVERSON/KONITZ/GRENADIER/ROSSY: Costumes are Mandatory
HighNote, 2013

ODDBALL MODERN JAZZ – The older he gets, the more free and improvisational Lee Konitz becomes. At age 85, he teams up with Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson for an unusual session that merges straight jazz with new, strange shapes and subverts expectations at every turn. Toying with (or grating against) the avant-cool Lennie Tristano style of playing that was Konitz’s training ground in the 1950s, Konitz’s uncomfortable wobbly tone and Iverson’s angular structures take turns jostling against a relatively straight-down-the-line rhythm section.

Fo’s Picks: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13

1. 3:24 – easy blues shuffle: piano/sax warp the melodic line, straight rhythm
2. 7:03 – wide-open ballad: solo piano intro, warbly sax, gently knotted piano
3. 1:06 – solo piano overdubs, a Lennie Tristano technique
4. 4:54 – oddball swing with a little Monk in it, sax plays it cool, good rhythm
5. 5:34 – standard ballad inside-out: sparkling piano, sax flirts with dissonance
6. 4:48 – lopsided stroll, relatively straightforward but lots of weird shadings
7. 5:50 – unrecognizable meandering ballad, a free-flowing sax/bass duet
8. 4:43 – no sax, but piano wanders all over this cover of “Blueberry Hill”
9. 2:02 – free-flowing piano/bass/drums, organic and improvisational
10. 2:12 – piano/drums duet (+metronome), upbeat but angular hard swing
11. 1:19 – brief avant duet for piano and sawing bass, softens up
12. 2:37 – strange interlude for piano strings, drifts towards #13
13. 7:05 – ballad: otherworldly intro, light scatting by Konitz, then straight
14. 3:34 – another version of #1, a bit more relaxed

[ Fo ] - 11 August 2013