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Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1946. He played with leading bebop musicians and formed his own small bands, which soon displayed some of his early interests – contrapuntal interaction of instruments, harmonic flexibility, and rhythmic complexity. His quintet in 1949 recorded the first free group improvisations. Tristano's innovations continued in 1951, with the first overdubbed, improvised jazz recordings, and two years later, when he recorded an atonal improvised solo piano piece that was based on the development of motifs rather than on harmonies. He developed further via polyrhythms and chromaticism into the 1960s, but was infrequently recorded.
Tristano started teaching music, especially improvisation, in the early 1940s, and by the mid-1950s was concentrating on teaching in preference to performing. He taught in a structured and disciplined manner, which was unusual in jazz education when he began. His educational role over three decades meant that he exerted an influence on jazz through his students, including saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh.
Musicians and critics vary in their appraisal of Tristano as a musician. Some describe his playing as cold and suggest that his innovations had little impact; others state that he was a bridge between bebop and later, freer forms of jazz, and assert that he is less appreciated than he should be because commentators found him hard to categorize and because he chose not to commercialize.
1946 - 1947.Lennie Tristano - The Rarest Trio-Quartet Sessions
1946 - 1949.Lennie Tristano - Trio, Quartet, Quintet & Sextet
1947.Lennie Tristano - Live At The Cafe Bohemia
1949 - 1955. Lennie Tristano - Requiem
1950.Lennie Tristano Sextet - Wow
1951.Charlie Parker with Lennie Tristano - Complete Recordings
1952.Lennie Tristano - Live In Toronto
1953 - 1965.Lennie Tristano - Descent Into the Maelstrom
1955.Lennie Tristano - Live At The Confucius Restaurant (CD2)
1955.Lennie Tristano - Tristano (LP)
1956.Lennie Tristano & Warne Marsh - Intuition
1956.Lennie Tristano - New York Improvisations
1956.Lennie Tristano - The New Tristano
1958.Lennie Tristano - Continuity
1962.Lennie Tristano - Featuring Lee Konitz
1964 - 1965.Lennie Tristano - Note To Note
1965.Lennie Tristano - Concert In Copenhagen
1987.Lennie Tristano - The Complete Lennie Tristano on Keynote
1997.Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz & Warne Marsh - The Complete Atlantic Recordings (6 CD)
2003.Lennie Tristano - Intuition (4 CD)
2014.Lennie Tristano - Chicago April 1951
