The Lennie Tristano Quintet, ‘317 East 32nd St’ (Live in Toronto, 1952)
Lennie Tristano, 1965 ©Robert Polillo
We arrested-adolescence baby boomers (see “High Fidelity” et al) take the Desert Island issue seriously. Some people might choose music they associate with landmark events in their lives. Not I, said Jeff. Music’s too important to confuse it with life. My conundrum would be of a different sort – to go for the music I most esteem, or that which I listen to most, or that which I most enjoy. The first would include “John Wesley Harding”, for example, which I esteem greatly but listen to rarely. The second would include the Renaissance liturgical music I listen to as background music to sleep on the train, but I’m guessing I wouldn’t have that issue on a desert island. What do I do about The Beatles? I rarely actually bother to play their music anymore – I just press a button in my cerebral jukebox and let it run through my synapses.
One cut I’d surely like to spend the rest of my life with is ‘317 East 32nd’ by the Lennie Tristano quintet from their album “Live in Toronto 1952”.
Lennie Tristano’s music never fails to transport me. It’s pure and abstract and riveting. It’s like watching an imagined river, a mental act of divine creation. It transcends life. It never gets bogged down in the messiness of human intercourse. It’s beyond what one Danish prince called ‘the whips and scorns of time’.
Lennie Tristano (1919–78) is no household name, and I understand why. Not many people ‘get’ his music, because there’s nothing to ‘get’. It’s an abstract. Like watching mathematical patterns unfold. So what? Well, I’ll tell you so what:
Ice Also Burns.
Way back in SoTW 027 I wrote about Tristano and an even more obscure cut, ‘Wow’ live from 1949. I can’t improve on what I said there: Tristano forced his rhythm section to serve as a metronome, providing a regular, mechanical pulse. Remarkably, such creative musicians as bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach were Tristano supporters. Because on top of that pulse, he would reorganize the bar, displace the metric system, create a disjointed and constantly surprising world. You can count tick-tick-tick without problems, but try one-two-three-four and at some point you’ll find yourself in a world of temporal relativity. It’s a shame Tristano never invited Einstein to sit in on violin. He would have felt very much at home, I think.
From left: Max Kaminsky, Lester Young, Hot Lips Page, Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano
Eunmi Shim wrote in her musical biography of Tristano: Mingus and Max Roach were quite enamoured of Tristano’s approach, which restricted the rhythmic contribution of bass and drums quite severely. [But] they approved of such consciously articulated developments as that of emasculating the rhythm section in order to free the front line. Mingus said, “Indiviuals can swing alone like Bird, and groups can swing collectively like Tristano’s”.
Tristano is often presented as the antithesis of the great Charlie Parker. Where Bird was the ultimate pour-it-out faster-than-the-ear-can-hear no-holds-barred improviser, Tristano was a proponent of strict discipline. He trained his students to take responsibility for every single note. The gut vs. the mind. But Bird and Tristano had great respect for each other. One Sunday Bird drove out to Tristano’s house on Long Island, where they recorded two cuts – ‘All of Me’ and ‘I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me’. That’s the great Kenny Clarke tapping on the phonebook!
Mingus is the source of another famous tale about how dislikable Tristano could be: “Woody Herman, who’s supposed to be a very nice guy and a funny one, came over to Lennie. He asked Tristano if he were really blind. ‘Yes,’ Lennie said, ‘I can’t see anything.’…’Good,’ said Woody. ‘Good, you motherfucker. I’m glad you can’t see!’…I knew Lennie; I knew how destructive he could be. And I asked him, ‘But what did you do to get that guy so hurt and angry?”
Irascible, perhaps, but Tristano left a legacy. Two great saxophonists were his best-known disciples, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, both of whom we’ve written about at length. On this version of ‘317 East 32nd’,Konitz (alto sax) plays the first solo, Tristano (piano) the second, Marsh (tenor sax) the third.
The song, like many Tristano ‘originals’ is a reworking of a standard, this time ‘Out Of Nowhere’. Here’s a version by Ella Fitzgerald for comparison. And here are a few more versions of ‘317 East 32nd’ for your listening edification:
Quartet with Konitz, Sing Song Room, 1955
Quintet with Konitz and Marsh, Half Note 1964
Konitz and Alan Broadbent (piano), 2000
Marsh and Red Mitchell (bass), 1987
Here are some more sterling cuts from the 1952 Toronto concert by the Tristano Quintet with Konitz and Marsh: ‘Lennie’s Pennies‘, ”You Go to My Head‘, ‘April‘ and ‘Sound-Lee‘
And here’s a 40-minute solo concert of Tristano in Copenhagen, in a video I recently discovered: Copenhagen concert
They’re all great. But it’s the ‘317 East 32nd’ from Toronto that I’m taking with me to Bali Hai. I’m going to sip on coconut milk and watch the waves and escape into the very pure beauty of this cut. It’s perfect music.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:
027: Lennie Tristano, ‘Wow’ 037: Lee Konitz, ‘Alone Together’ (w. Charlie Haden & Brad Mehldau) 134: Lee Konitz, ‘Duende’ 153: Pete Christlieb & Warne Marsh, ‘Magna-Tism’
and then came http://whatsjazz.blogspot.co.il/2011/03/george-russell-sextet-ezz-thetics-1961.html
When, in the begining of this sotw, you described Tristano’s music as being “abstract” I was worried.
But even my ear, attuned to less progressive jazz, found ‘317 East 32nd st.” to be very easy to listen to and suprisingly enjoyable.
Thanks for opening another window into the world of jazz.
I was listening to this on YouTube and checked it on Google to see where they played. The UJPO Hall. That was the United Jewish People’s Order, a Communist organization.
Connie Crothers is one of the most versatile pntiisas on a scene that is so often mislabeled free jazz. Her pianism has been cultivated through long years of study and deep listening, evident in each tone, chord and gesture. Overwhelming intensity, at whatever volume, is juxtaposed with transparent beauty in a style that is as unique as it is unpredictable.Crothers has the perfect partner in clarinetist Bill Payne, with this disc of dialogues belying a long musical relationship, as evidenced by the moment in Conversation no. 3 when Payne plays a two-note figure, immediately following which Crothers flourishes downward to land on Payne’s E-flat. In fact, counterpoint is the duo’s MO throughout. It opens Conversation 4 and is even more rigorous in the tenth conversation. Crothers’ Tristano association is made plain in the latter, but as the tenth track heats up, bluesy inflections and clusters pervade, leading to a surprisingly trilled ending from Payne. By contrast, there are the Messiaenic sonorities of Conversation 12, with Payne beginning in lower registers and with such rhythmic freedom it almost sounds like a movement left out of Quartet for the End of Time.The duo’s rhythmic diversity is stunning. Conversation 1 finds them establishing motoric rhythms in variously shifting meters seemingly without effort. If several of the improvised pieces do, in fact, invoke the high-dynamics usually associated with Cecil Taylor, such concerns are momentary and they reflect only one facet of this duo’s remarkable ability to communicate quickly and efficiently on many levels. This is improvised music at its finest. Marc Medwin, All About Jazz / New York, November 2008
you said it.
that concert changed my life. i listen to it 2-3 x a year now, 50 years after i heard it the first time, in nyc at my buddy victor’s house. vic was studying tenor with lenny popkin a disciple of lennie t.s….
the toronto concert, the live stuff from the half note….only makes me sad there is not more live Lennie Lee Warne together out there..