Lennie Tristano - Intuition (4 CD, 2003/FLAC)

 Blind since childhood, pianist Lennie Tristano nevertheless went on to create a whole school of jazz composition and playing. His playing was spare and his harmonies inspired by contemporary classical music, forming an antidote to the bebop styles prevalent at the time. This 4CD set is a comprehensive collection of his early work and includes performances from musicians such as Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh as well as Lennie's solo and trio work.

Lennie Tristano (piano); Billy Bauer (guitar); John LaPorta, Buddy DeFranco (clarinet); Lee Konitz, Charlie Parker (alto saxophone); Emmett Carls, Warne Marsh, Charlie Ventura (tenor saxophone); Ernie Caceres (baritone saxophone); Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Shorty Rogers (trumpet); Earl Swope, J. Alan Johnson , Kai Winding (trombone); Denzil Best, Don Lamond, Harold Granowsky, Al Levitt, Jeff Morton, Roy Haynes, Shelly Manne (drums).

Lennie Tristano - Personal Recordings 1946-1970 (6 CD, 2021) [FLAC]

 

This set follows an unusual pattern for a Mosaic release in that it is not presented in chronological order, but rather themed to a style of presentation crossing eras and personnel. 

 

Lennie Tristano discography [1946-2014]

 

Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation.

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

Lennie Tristano - The Complete Lennie Tristano on Keynote(1947)/Live in Toronto(1952) (2 CD, 1994/FLAC)

 The Complete Lennie Tristano on Keynote(1947)

The earliest of these 19 sides, dating from 1946, capture Lennie Tristano at age 27, newly arrived in New York and beginning to carve a place for himself in the embryonic bebop scene. Playing with Billy Bauer on guitar and bassist Clyde Lombardi, Tristano shows off a mix of youthful verse and pianistic elegance, coupled with effortless, seamless invention, matched by Bauer's crisp, economical, yet quietly flamboyant guitar.

Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz & Warne Marsh - The Complete Atlantic Recordings [6 CD, 1997]

 Pianist Lennie Tristano was an early inspiration and a major influence on the playing of altoist Lee Konitz and tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh. Their very notable and highly original Capitol recordings of 1949 -- with the quiet metronomic rhythm section, advanced melodic improvising and reharmonizations -- stood apart from the typical bop of the period. By 1955, when the earliest performances on this limited-edition 1997 six-CD set were recorded, the trio was not working together very often; in fact, Tristano was mostly functioning as a teacher, only surfacing for occasional records and club dates. Despite the title of the box, Tristano, Konitz and Marsh never all appeared on the same Atlantic record. However, their individual projects and collaborations during the era were of consistently high quality. Included on the set are a live quartet date with Konitz and Tristano, a couple of the pianist's solo and trio sessions (including a few controversial items where he overdubbed and even sped up piano parts), several Konitz quartet sets (with such sidemen as pianists Sal Mosca and Jimmy Rowles and guitarist Billy Bauer), a Marsh trio/quartet album, and a stimulating meeting between Konitz and Marsh (with Mosca and Bauer) in a sextet. Four of the performances were previously unreleased, and one of the Konitz albums was formerly only available in Japan. Although the inventive music often utilizes familiar chord changes, there are plenty of surprises in the cool-toned solos, and this is well worth acquiring by bop collectors.