New Konitz book

[Larry Kart]

Just out from the U. of Michigan Press is Andy Hamilton's "Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser's Art." Mostly conversations with Lee, with interesting contributions as well from the likes of Gunther Schuller, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Ornette, and (a disclaimer) yours truly, it's a terrific book, thanks mostly to Lee being who he is (remarkably open and uncensored, full of insights into his own music and music in general) and to the skill and determination of Hamilton, who worked hard over some time to make it happen.

[jostber]

Looks like a great read! I have heard some interviews with Lee Konitz, and he has a lot of interesting to say on music and improvisation. This book also is dedicated to the great Lennie Tristano, and has a foreword by Joe Lovano. Review on AllAboutJazz:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=25703

[Clunky]

Just out from the U. of Michigan Press is Andy Hamilton's "Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser's Art." Mostly conversations with Lee, with interesting contributions as well from the likes of Gunther Schuller, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Ornette, and (a disclaimer) yours truly, it's a terrific book, thanks mostly to Lee being who he is (remarkably open and uncensored, full of insights into his own music and music in general) and to the skill and determination of Hamilton, who worked hard over some time to make it happen.

Agreed. I keeping dipping into, but haven't started reading it properly as I'm still reading a Dizzy Gillespie biography.

[ghost of miles]

This and the Tristano bio are both going on my b-day/x-mas list.

[Kalo]

This and the Tristano bio are both going on my b-day/x-mas list.

Mine, too. Except I might not be able to wait that long!

[BruceH]

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Lazaro Vega]

Question: Chapter 2, foot note 3 relating to a made up jazz narrative and inaccurate "journalistic transcription" as relates to "The Charlie Parker 'Chili House' anecdote? Sighting Woideck, 'Charlie Parker,' pages 16-17. Not having that book what is wrong in the original story of Bird and Biddy Fleet (that's the Chili House anecdote?).

Listening to Konitz "Lover Man" with Kenton.

[JSngry]

Question: Chapter 2, foot note 3 relating to a made up jazz narrative and inaccurate "journalistic transcription" as relates to "The Charlie Parker 'Chili House' anecdote? Sighting Woideck, 'Charlie Parker,' pages 16-17. Not having that book what is wrong in the original story of Bird and Biddy Fleet (that's the Chili House anecdote?).

Biddy Fleet was a guitarist. Per Bird's telling, it was while gigging with Fleet at a Harlem chili house that what he was hearing (improvisations involving "the upper intervals of the chord" is how I believe he put it) and what he was able to play first came together.

[JSngry]

Question: Chapter 2, foot note 3 relating to a made up jazz narrative and inaccurate "journalistic transcription" as relates to "The Charlie Parker 'Chili House' anecdote? Sighting Woideck, 'Charlie Parker,' pages 16-17. Not having that book what is wrong in the original story of Bird and Biddy Fleet (that's the Chili House anecdote?).

Biddy Fleet was a guitarist. Per Bird's telling, it was while gigging with Fleet at a Harlem chili house that what he was hearing (improvisations involving "the upper intervals of the chord" is how I believe he put it) and what he was able to play first came together.

Oh, sorry, I thought you meant what was the story itself. My bad...

As to what might be wrong with it... I'm not sure, other than I seem to remember the date being given as 1939, and I'm not sure if Bird was in NY in 1939.

When did he come to NY w/Harlan Leonard?

[Larry Kart]

Another big problem with the Biddy Fleet chili-house breakthrough anecdote is that what it says Bird did on "Cherokee" -- use "the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and [back] them with appropriately related changes" -- was not in fact something that was characteristic of his playing. Rather, these were methods used by some bop-era composers. Bird's solo work was not as schematic, and to the degree that it was schematic, it was not so in that way.

[Lazaro Vega]

Thanks Dave and Larry. Faulty narratives in American life are American life. As Jim Harrison said at a reading last night when we die all that's left are the stories.

Looking forward to Chapter 6 now after Hamilton's remark on page 22, "[Konitz] has no interest in persuing what he regards as Parker's 'compositional' approach of developing a vocabulary of motifs -- a difficult issue discussed in Chapter 6 -- and though he recognizes Parker as a genius, he is also in some ways ambivalent about his music."

Edited October 11, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[AllenLowe]

funny, but the idea of using the higher intervals and using appropriate changes sounds more like a Tatum thing to me - kind of a method for chromatic substitution, maybe -

also, glad someone mentioned Larry Gushee, who has become a good friend during his summers here in Maine. One of the great curmudgeons of the jazz history world, and he and I battle it out every year about verifable and unverifiable "facts." He's a great man -

[Larry Kart]

Another big problem with the Biddy Fleet chili-house breakthrough anecdote is that what it says Bird did on "Cherokee" -- use "the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and [back] them with appropriately related changes" -- was not in fact something that was characteristic of his playing. Rather, these were methods used by some bop-era composers. Bird's solo work was not as schematic, and to the degree that it was schematic, it was not so in that way.

More about this -- and related statements by drummer Gus Johnson, bassist Gene Ramey, Don Byas, and Dexter Gordon about supposed systematic use of substitute harmonies by Bird -- from Brian Priestley's "Chasin' the Bird" (pp. 115-16): "It is hard to find recorded examples of anything [like this] ... in Parker's playing..... [And] it was unusual for him to compose lines that relied on complex harmonic movement, obviously preferring to reserve an optional complexity for his spontaneous improvisations. His use of harmony was extremely sophisticated, but what distinguished his mature style was the ability to take any principle of chord complication, whether derived from Tatum, Ellington, Gillespie, or Young, and make it work in a totally non-programmed and non-schematic way. Put more succinctly, the polyrhythmic approach was essential but the polyharmonies were less so....

[AllenLowe]

the amazing thing about Bird (or ONE amazing thing), that I especially note when I read transcripts of solos, is how he puts certain unlikley intervals together in such incredibly melodic ways - I'll see a note that he's picked out or a jump that he makes, and I'll say to myself, "where the hell did he get that? and sure enough it resolves in a way which you could never predict but which is completely logical. Now I do remember Dave Schildkraut talking about a way he used to play, and he said he got some of the idea from Bird - he would phrase ahead, looking a bar or two or three ahead in the chord changes, and this would create a kind of dissonance but a relatively gentle kind and a logical one, since the changes he was looking at were usually related in terms of key, progression, transition, harmonic anticipation, etc. So this may have to do with Bird's kind of harmonic ingenuity -

or it might have to do with his being stoned out of his gourd every night -

Edited October 11, 2007 by AllenLowe

[umum_cypher]

Beyond (or in the midst) the idea of veracity and fidelity in history writing - how right it seems to us - is the idea of creative feedback and misinterpretation in the past - how the history writing seemed to them.

What I want to know is how many of the musicians in the generation after Bird, who really did seize on those upper extensions for melodic and harmonic material, came to that by reading the Chilli House story and, in the quest to be like Bird, took it as gospel. 'Doesn't sound like him - but it sounds good anyway.' Maybe none, but you see what I mean.

[Larry Kart]

Beyond (or in the midst) the idea of veracity and fidelity in history writing - how right it seems to us - is the idea of creative feedback and misinterpretation in the past - how the history writing seemed to them.

What I want to know is how many of the musicians in the generation after Bird, who really did seize on those upper extensions for melodic and harmonic material, came to that by reading the Chilli House story and, in the quest to be like Bird, took it as gospel. 'Doesn't sound like him - but it sounds good anyway.' Maybe none, but you see what I mean.

I see your point, but given the fact that there was so much Bird on record after a while, which couldn't help but reveal what he actually was doing musically, I would imagine that most players who dug Bird did so on the basis of what they were hearing him do rather than on what the Chili House anecdote and others like it said that he was doing.

[paul secor]

Beyond (or in the midst) the idea of veracity and fidelity in history writing - how right it seems to us - is the idea of creative feedback and misinterpretation in the past - how the history writing seemed to them.

What I want to know is how many of the musicians in the generation after Bird, who really did seize on those upper extensions for melodic and harmonic material, came to that by reading the Chilli House story and, in the quest to be like Bird, took it as gospel. 'Doesn't sound like him - but it sounds good anyway.' Maybe none, but you see what I mean.

I see your point, but given the fact that there was so much Bird on record after a while, which couldn't help but reveal what he actually was doing musically, I would imagine that most players who dug Bird did so on the basis of what they were hearing him do rather than on what the Chili House anecdote and others like it said that he was doing.

In other words, musicians tend to listen to music, rather than read books of criticism/anecdotes. Makes sense.

[Lazaro Vega]

Curious, too, that Bird never spoke up to correct this account.

[JSngry]

Curious, too, that Bird never spoke up to correct this account.

Why?

[AllenLowe]

I think he was too stoned to talk about it -

[Chuck Nessa]

Fans read articles and books. Real musicians make music. They only check the written word when asked about specific pieces. How's that for a generalization?

[Larry Kart]

Fans read articles and books. Real musicians make music. They only check the written word when asked about specific pieces. How's that for a generalization?

Hey -- two whole real musicians have read my book. Or at least they said they did.

[JSngry]

Why am I thinking that the Biddy Fleet thing ain't that big a deal? Are there any taped transcripts of the original interview? No? So what we have here is "mythology". A mixed blessing, mythology is, but I'd probably rather live in a world where I had to cut through the bullshit it creates than one where I had to cut through the bullshit the lack of it creates.

The interviews with Bird that I have heard have him speaking in all manners of manners, depending on the circumstances. Seems that I've heard a tape of at least one (other?) interview w/Marshall Stearns where Bird is just saying shit just to get through it all while Stearns is poking at him like a laboratory assistant intent on convincing the specimen that nobody means him any harm. It's not inconcievable to me that he did make mention of the Fleet gig being some sort of "breakthrough" for him. Whether or not he actually used the "upper intervals" lingo is another thing, but really, does anybody take anything literally that gets quoted in a jazz magazine article, especially anything technical? C'mon!

I can tell you that I learned my lesson the hard way. I once played a gig at a chili house in Fort Worth. Memories of the faux-Birdquote resonating in my mind, I found some biddy to administer a Fleet enema to the upper intervals of my intestinal tract. For the rest of the night, I couldn't play a damn thing I was hearing, as I was backed up against the toilet seat, and although I certainly came alive, it was by no means in a positive way. So maybe it is that big of a deal, and that Gushee guy's grumpiness is justified after all.

I certainly hope so.

[AllenLowe]

"Fans read articles and books. Real musicians make music"

well, I don''t know - I read music books all the time, and I hope I'm a real musician - and yes, I read Larry's book. Twice.

[umum_cypher]

Isn't that a bit patronising? Those young-in-the-50s musicians who idol-worshipped Bird that I've talked to - these are Lee Morgan's friends colleagues etc - paid attention to what he said in any context, face-to-face, in print. They may have been musicians eventually, but at first they were the biggest fans there were. And they read Down Beat. (Lee himself near-parrots a Bird Down Beat quote in his own Down Beat interview of 1961). Musical knowledge and understanding doesn't come out of thin air; eventually, the sound, what's on record, is enough. But I don't doubt that those seeking a way in to music that was (for the amateurs they were, at some point) baffling in its construction, would turn their noses up at an analysis/intellectualisation that had come, supposedly, from the horse's mouth.