[Dixielandjazz] Lee Konitz

[Steve Barbone]

Brian Wood <TBW504 at aol.com> wrote:
 
>Not just Louis. The foremost exponent of the cool approach to jazz and
>associated with Miles Davis in the late 40s, and the last person one would
>expect to have any connection with traditional jazz. However, Konitz lived at
>the same house as David Bell in 1946. Mama Yancey used to help with the
>chores. Marty Marsala and Don Ewell hung out there, too, and David and his
>wife Marilyn met Bunk Johnson at that time, and later made the famous film of
>Bunk. Later still the Bells got to know Harold Drob, and were friends also of
>Emily Mae Evans, Bunk's stepdaughter. In 1947 Konitz was studying with Lennie
>Tristano in New York and heard Bunk Johnson play at the Stuyvesant. Jerry
>Blumberg quoted  Konitz as saying, "You ought to hear Bunk play 'Honeysuckle
>Rose'. He's playing  like Tristano!"
 
>If you open your ears it's all music.

Well said Brian. Konitz got hip to jazz through listening to the swing
bands, especially Benny Goodman's. That's why he wanted, and first got a
clarinet at age 11. Other early influences were Artie Shaw and Lester Young.
That Nonet work he did with Miles and "The Birth of The Cool" was admired by
lots of us hipster wannabes in the late 40s, early 50s.

In most conversations with the man, he would invariably mention Armstrong as
"the man", in jazz. Also, he and Parker were great friends and while he knew
Parker's harmonics, he played and plays very differently from Bird.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone