The level of interplay is intense. The egos are not on display in Bro’s music.
ECM 2543 / 750 6872
Lee Konitz (alto and soprano saxophones); Bill Frisell (guitar); Jakob Bro (guitar); Jason Moran (piano); Thomas Morgan (double bass); Andrew Cyrille (drums)
Recorded March 2014
Black Is All The Colours All At Once / Haiti / Milford Sound / Aarhus / Pearl River / Peninsula / Mar Del Plata
There is probably a good reason why this album has been hanging around in the ECM cupboard for years, I don’t know why. This for me is a Lee Konitz album. It is a good, maybe a great album and a worthy addition to late period Konitz. The sad thing is that Lee is not here to receive any kudos: he died in 2020 at age 92.
One of the many startling aspects about Konitz is the journey from student of Lennie Tristano in 194? to the Birth Of The Cool Sessions with Miles Davis, to Stan Kenton in the early fifties where Konitz was the greatest soloist in Kenton’s greatest band. Listen to his solo on “My Lady”. The beauty of Bill Russo’s writing highlighting the lucidity of the altoist. At times Konitz in his career seemed to get lost, there were even rumours he was a house painter! A startling album “Motion” with Elvin Jones amazed people and restored him. The label of being the only altoist from the forties not influenced by Charlie Parker started to define him. He recorded and toured extensively and his tone, the beautiful tone changed and he wandered Europe playing variations on his favourite standards. The tone became even thinner, the ideas more abstract and then he met Jakob Bro and recorded the trilogy: “Balladeering”, “Time” and “December Song”.
At one point in an interview on his way to a Jakob Bro session, Konitz muses: Folk music, very simple rhythms and melodies with some room to improvise. Here is a guy in his eighties playing with people decades younger and leading the way. It all speaks strongly of openness.
Bassist Thomas Morgan in a video was asked what he was looking for. After a long pause he said: “I’m looking for discovery”. I suspect that is what all the group around Bro would say the same thing. The level of interplay is intense. The egos are not on display in Bro’s music. This is about the group working together, learning together, discovering together. Various metaphors have been offered to describe Bro’s writing and playing: the slow running river meandering, tapestries, weaving melodies, melodic mosaics.
Collective playing is not new to jazz. It was common in New Orleans before the star soloists like Louis Armstrong took over. Collective playing with players gaining inspiration from each other without striving to dominate. It is mainly about listening without anyone asserting their technique. Bro has been described as a guitar anti-hero interested more in the group than individual grandstanding. The way that Bill Frisell dovetails with Bro is a pleasure to hear: the blend with Bro is a delight. Thomas Morgan’s bass lines flow in and out of the collective conversation.
The place names have meanings for Bro. “Aarhus”, the shortest track, is named for the place where he was born and raised. It has a particularly beautiful solo from Konitz “Haiti”, the longest and most complex track is where a friend lived and commemorates a visit that Bro played there. The gentle rhythm is propelled subtly by Morgan and Cyrille there. “Pearl River” is named for a store in New York’s Chinatown, popular with students. It must have been satisfying for the great alto player to have played so poignantly on “Pearl River” with the pattering rhythm.
“Milford Sound” in New Zealand has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful places in the world. Andrew Cyrille finds an usual rhythm while Konitz improvises over the two guitars as they slowly fade away.
Probably the most conventional, and the least successful piece, is: “Mar Del Plata” which is beautiful if repetitive. Interestingly, Konitz does not play on this.
It is essential that an album like this should have a great recording. The clarity of the recording is an important component of this music.
