# Lee Konitz, alto saxophonist who exemplified Jazz’s imperative to make it new, is dead at 92: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/04/16/lee-konitz-alto-saxophonist-who-exemplified-jazzs-imperative-to-make-it-new-is-dead-at-92-videos-photos/
- Published: 2020-04-16T14:22:16+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Lee Konitz, an exemplar of modern jazz improvisation, and arguably the most influential
alto saxophone soloist after bebop progenitor Charlie Parker, died on Wednesday 
at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. He was 92.**

His son, Josh Konitz, said the cause was pneumonia, related to COVID-19.

Konitz was one of the last jazz musicians of his era still in active circulation:
his career has hummed along, apparently impervious to popular trends or external
pressure, for the last 75 years. A sound as individual as his can’t be reduced to
a buzzword, but he was commonly associated with the “cool” school in jazz. He embodied
the idea, as he once put it, that “it’s possible to get the maximum intensity in
your playing and still relax.”

His first major exposure came in 1947, in an impressionistic big band led by Claude
Thornhill; he can be heard soloing with striking promise and originality on Gil 
Evans’ arrangements of “[Yardbird Suite](https://youtu.be/_uxXJLb6_hM)” and other
Charlie Parker themes. Through his association with Evans, he was part of the coterie
involved in Miles Davis’ historic _Birth of the Cool_ sessions in 1949. His playing
on the eerie coda of “[Moon Dreams](https://youtu.be/Tcg2Do13RJc)” remains one of
that album’s most unconventional moments.

But Konitz’s pivotal association, from 1943 intermittently until 1964, was with 
the blind pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano, creator of an enigmatic, almost cult-
like offshoot of bebop known as the Tristano School.

[[

Doggedly advocating a theory of improvisation that eschewed all predetermined licks
and patterns, Tristano taught his disciples — Konitz and tenor saxophonist Warne
Marsh chief among them — to focus on intuitive melodic shapes and rhythmic displacement
within the steady 4/4 beat. Though the Tristano school ultimately proved too insular
and constricting for Konitz, he remained devoted to many aspects of Tristano’s philosophy
throughout his career.

Tristano did not approve of Konitz playing with a range of musicians in ever-changing
settings, but for the alto saxophonist, this became a central mission. His hunger
for musical conversation led him to amass one of the largest discographies in all
of jazz (very much unlike Tristano).

But save for a few short periods, and despite remaining prolific well into old age,
Konitz didn’t lead a steady working group. He simply played with everyone. Remarking
on a younger musician he admired, one with a well-rehearsed band and an ever-growing
book of music, Konitz once said: “Bravo. I don’t seem to need that in my life.”

[[

Lee Konitz with Dan Tepfer at The Jazz Gallery in New York, 2017.

He often played in duos or trios, or alone: on _Lone-Lee_ (1974), probably the most
intimate document of his sound that exists, he plays “[The Song Is You](https://youtu.be/HU5kVD9NAlw)”
unaccompanied for nearly 40 minutes, and then “Cherokee” for nearly 20. He sought
meaning and human connection from every encounter; ego was not a factor. “A good
solo doesn’t care who plays it,” he once said.

His ethic as a wanderer and committed listener had a major impact on the younger
musicians he sought out. “I always think of Lee as a Zen master,” Dan Tepfer, a 
pianist and frequent Konitz duo partner, said in a 2012 interview. “There’s nothing
keeping [him] from responding to what’s actually going on in the moment.”

Tenor saxophonist Mark Turner once referred to Konitz’s “jarring rhythmic sense,”
in an interview with Ted Panken for _DownBeat_. “Phrases are never in groups of 
two or four or eight beats or notes,” Turner added, “but in sevens or nines or fives
or sixes. His lines are also very involved, long, connected, extremely lyrical.”

[[

Lee Konitz performing at the 2014 Newport Jazz Festival.

Particularly in his later years, Konitz preferred to play standards — and well-worn
ones at that, such as “Stella By Starlight” and “I’ll Remember April.” In the liner
notes to his 1957 Atlantic release _The Real Lee Konitz_, he wrote: “I feel that
in improvisation, the tune should serve as a vehicle for musical variations…. For
this reason I have never been concerned with finding new tunes to play. I often 
feel that I could play and record the same tunes over and over and still come up
with fresh variations.”

Still, he addressed a wide body of original music over the years. _An Image: Lee
Konitz with Strings_ (1958) finds him playing ambitious, Third Stream-type compositions
by Bill Russo. Other examples include a deliciously odd 1977 trio encounter with
pianist Paul Bley and guitarist Bill Connors called _Pyramid_; trumpeter Kenny Wheeler’s
1997 album _Angel Song_; and a series of refined collaborations with saxophonist
and composer Ohad Talmor from the mid-2000s on, the most recent of which, _Old Songs
New, _was released last fall.

Konitz himself composed relatively little, and what he did write, following the 
practice of Parker  and Tristano, were mostly contrafacts — melodies based on existing
chord changes. His best-known piece, “Subconscious-Lee,” was based on Cole Porter’s“
What Is This Thing Called Love.” (Here is televised footage of Konitz and Marsh 
performing the song in 1958, with partners including Billy Taylor on piano and Mundell
Lowe on guitar.)

Another Konitz standard, “Thingin’,” is based on “All the Things You Are.” “Dream
Stepper” was a line on “You Stepped Out of a Dream.” “No Splice” came from “You’d
Be So Nice to Come Home To.” And “Palo Alto” was derived from the Gershwins’ “Strike
Up the Band.”

The many song and album titles that pun on Konitz’s name (“Sound-Lee,” “Knowinglee,”“
Lovelee,” “Unleemited,” “Ice Cream Konitz,” Warne Marsh’s “Bop Goes the Leesel”)
suggest a whimsical character. And indeed Konitz’s had a pronounced comic side. 
But he could also be sharply critical, a curmudgeon.

“His total honesty and integrity goes with high critical standards, and he is not
interested in a mollifying niceness,” wrote Andy Hamilton in his 2007 book Lee Konitz:
Conversations on the Improviser’s Art. And yet he was, Hamilton adds, “a warm, gentle,
and artistically vulnerable soul.”

Leon Lee Konitz was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago on October 13, 1927.
He was the youngest of three brothers. His father, Abraham, from Austria, ran a 
laundromat (the family lived in the back). His mother, Anna, was from Russia. His
parents spoke Yiddish at home and were not religiously strict, nor musically aware,
though they were supportive when Lee picked up a clarinet at 11, after hearing Benny
Goodman. (He soon came to prefer Artie Shaw.)

After a period of classical training with Lou Honig (who also taught saxophonists
Johnny Griffin and Eddie Harris), Konitz switched to tenor saxophone at 12 and studied
with Santy Runyon. He took up the alto for a gig, and discovered that it reflected
his true voice. Still, his tenor playing graced numerous recordings, most significantly
the stunning _Tenorlee_ (1978), with pianist Jimmy Rowles and bassist Michael Moore.
His elegant and personal soprano saxophone voice is abundantly documented as well.

Konitz was a great admirer, but never an imitator, of Parker. His influences reached
farther back. He fell in love with and memorized Lester Young’s solos from Count
Basie’s Old Testament period of the late 1930s. His enduring love for that music,
and its role in shaping his aesthetic, was the focus of an interview with pianist
Ethan Iverson in 2009.

Konitz also absorbed Johnny Hodges, Roy Eldridge, Willie Smith, Scoops Carry and
more. He deeply appreciated Louis Armstrong: “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” from
Armstrong’s Hot Fives was long in his repertoire, with the trumpet solo played note-
for-note on alto. Konitz also cited Benny Carter’s 1940 solo on “I Can’t Believe
that You’re in Love with Me” (with the Chocolate Dandies) as a major influence. (
He plays the song on _Konitz Meets Mulligan_, from 1953; the same chords underlie
Tristano’s “Two Not One,” which appears on the 1955 classic _Lee Konitz with Warne
Marsh_.)

Beginning in 1945, Konitz got his first serious gigs with Jerry Wald, Lloyd Lifton
and Teddy Powell. He became immersed in his studies with Tristano; left home at 
20 to play with Thornhill; and was soon in the thick of _Birth of the Cool_ in New
York. He headed west in 1952 to play with bandleader Stan Kenton, on _New Concepts
of Artistry in Rhythm_ and other releases. He expressed particular pride in his 
solo on the up-tempo Bill Holman composition “[In Lighter Vein](https://youtu.be/dg5Ccwdwa94).”

Konitz began to flourish as a leader in the mid ’50s, with albums like _In Harvard
Square,_ _Inside Hi-Fi_, _Very Cool_ and _Tranquility_. His 1959 outing _Lee Konitz
Meets Jimmy Giuffre_, and the follow-up _You and Lee_, prefigured the expanded ensemble
sound he would pursue with his ’70s nonet, which recorded four fine albums including
_Yes, Yes Nonet_ (1979).

The 1961 trio release _Motion_, with bassist Sonny Dallas and drummer Elvin Jones,
remains a touchstone, mapping the road forward for his oblique approach to standard
tunes. He had an avant-garde side as well: having joined Tristano’s 1949 group in
venturing what are considered the first two free improvisations on record, “Intuition”
and “Digression,” he went on to work with the likes of guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist
Andrew Hill and vibraphonist Karl Berger. Konitz did not erect boundaries, and was
comfortable in a number of experimental settings.

On _The Lee Konitz Duets_ (1968), with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, guitarist
Jim Hall and an array of others, Konitz took to what would become perhaps his favorite
format of all. He went on to make duo albums with many partners, including Tepfer
and other pianists of high distinction, like Martial Solal, Michel Petrucciani, 
Kenny Werner and Gary Versace. And his two-volume 1980 duo outing with Gil Evans,
_Heroes_ and _Anti-Heroes_, is worth seeking out for the Mingus interpretations 
alone.

[[

Lee Konitz with Brad Mehldau at Town Hall, on a memorial service for Charlie Haden
in 2015.

Konitz’s many other notable performances on record include a pair of trio dates 
at the Jazz Bakery in the mid-1990s, with bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Brad
Mehldau; they appear on Konitz’s only albums for Blue Note, _Alone Together _and
_Another Shade of Blue. _Konitz, Haden and Meldau reunited, adding drummer Paul 
Motian, for _Live at Birdland, recorded in 2009_ and released on ECM the following
year.

Along with his son Josh, Konitz is survived by another son, Paul; three daughters,
Rebecca, Stephanie and Karen; three nephews and a great-niece; three grandchildren;
and one great-grandchild.

The National Endowment for the Arts named Konitz an NEA Jazz Master in 2009. Just
over a decade later, he performed at the induction ceremony with Tepfer — playing
an old standby, “All the Things You Are,” and interspersing his alto saxophone with
a scat improvisation, as he had been known to do in recent years.

In a 1985 article in _DownBeat_, Konitz outlined a system of 10 layers, or “gradients,”
of improvised melodic development that one could attempt on a standard tune. The
last three of these were:

8) Still a subtle reference to the original song

9) Totally new theme

10) An act of pure inspiration

The gradients now reach to infinity. The act of pure inspiration was Konitz’s life
itself, never to be repeated or forgotten.

![Lee Konitz at the BIMHUIS in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, July 13, 1981.](https://
i0.wp.com/www.wbgo.org/sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/202004/GettyImages-
532402485.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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