Ethan Iverson

[montg]

Pretty extensive: Tristano, jazz, and race

Do the math

[Quasimado]

Pretty extensive: Tristano, jazz, and race

Do the math

Interesting article. No doubt Lennie's widely reported mouth (rather than actions) caused many of his problems. I presume the divisions are still there ...

Q

[AllenLowe]

took the words right outta my mouth - I've always been convinced that Tristano's rep has suffered primarily because he was a nasty, foul-mouthed, arrogant s.o.b - and unafraid to show it - sorta the Jim Jones of his time -

Edited May 18, 2008 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Maybe so, but Tristano's own playing never seemed to me to realize the full potential of its implications the way that Konitz's and (especially) Marsh's did. So maybe that mouth was part of the problem for more than "political" reasons, maybe he really was that...stifled, at least at some level.

Still, I remain a fan and admirer.

[AllenLowe]

how about Descent into the Maelstrom?

[jostber]

I can't hear any stifledness on these 2 Tristano classics:

[JSngry]

how about Descent into the Maelstrom?

Yeah, but.

Preponderance of the evidence, if you know what I mean.

Not saying it wasn't there, just that it didn't get as fully realized as often (or as publicly) in him as it did in others.

Having it & getting it out are two different things, no? For Tristano himself, I don't think there's any question whatsoever that he had it. But the getting it out was...not without "issues".

Ironically, the guy in that circle who worried the most about getting it out, perhaps even got mental about getting it out, Warne, was the one who ended up getting the most out. At least to me.

Lennie talked so much about "freedom", and what he said had so much truth to it. But his playing, far more often than not, seemed to be "curbed" at some level, although where that level was was often pretty high up. Lee, well, Lee got it, still has it, but for Lee, "it" is a state of mind communicated through the music. His music draws you in, deeply, but seldom (anymore) does it startle you. Nor should it, for it engages deeply & fully on its own terms.

Warne, otoh, was just about one of the freest motherfuckers in the history of this or other music. He got there through the "classical" route of discipline and overwhelming intimacy with set materials, but some of the shit he played was just...OUT THERE in the deepest, most bestest way imaginable. Lennie never even got close to where, at his most freest, Warne got.

Which is not a dis, just an observation. Like I said, I remain a fan & admirer or Tristano himself. But I do believe that if there was a "Promised Land" in all that he was after, that he was not the one to actually get there and settle it.

[Larry Kart]

Given what Jim said about Lennie, Warne, and Lee, and given that I agree with some of what he said, I think that Lennie's "problem" (and this probably was inseparable from his difficult personality) was that he was blind, and that he was a pianist. About the latter, pianists can do it by themselves, as hornplayers cannot. Further, while this is certainly not true of all great jazz pianists (think of Bud Powell, for one), meaningful "irrationality" of phrasing ("irrationality" as in "between-the-cracks irregularities, rhythmic and harmonic too, that really work) is something that Tristano tried to achieve through more or less "rational" means -- e.g. by layering one or more time feels and/or length and shape of phrase on top of another. In this, a comparison between the speeded-up "Line-Up" and the later, non-speeded-up "Becoming" is revealing. The meaningful irregularities of the rather slow-moving but still-moving (and mostly low register) "Becoming" from "The New Tristano" are impressive but pretty clearly "rational," in the sense mentioned above. But the (to the ear, or to most ears) dazzlingly "irrational" irregularites of "Line-Up," if slowed down to the tempo of "Becoming," which probably is close to the tempo at which Tristano recorded "Line-Up" before he then speeded-up the tape, sound less dazzlingly irregular and "irrational" than they do when sped-up. Here, I think, Iverson's mention of Nancarrow's player-piano pieces makes some sense. Likewise, many of us know how rhythmically mind-boggling a Coleman Hawkins record can sound if it's sped up so that the pitch of the horn is in the alto saxophone range -- this of a player who is not often felt to be a great purveryor of meaningfully "irrational" rhythmic thinking. I should add, so as not introduce a chimera, that "C-Minor Complex" from "The New Tristano" shows that by that time Tristano could achieve the meaningful irregularities of "Line-Up" all by himself, with no tape manipulation.

[AllenLowe]

Don Shlitten to me, circa 1976 (after I had recounted to him my meeting with Tristano):

"You know I always defended Lennie, told people this was the new thing, but he was just the meanest guy, did himself in."

[bluesoul]

Interview with Ethan Iverson