Ted and the Tristano School

Whither Ted Brown? The answer to that question can be found in my feature in Arts & Leisure this weekend, which uses Brown’s return -- at the Kitano Hotel this Wednesday, in case you didn’t know -- as an excuse to reflect on the growing influence of the Tristano School. 

I suspect hardcore Tristano fans will find plenty of fault with the piece, which takes a rudimentary approach to a fairly complex set of issues. This was the necessary tradeoff for a general-interest readership, though I do worry about one thing: I hope my characterization of Tristano’s music doesn’t make it seem like rhythm itself was M.I.A.

Anyone who has attempted to transcribe these tunes can attest to the subdivisions and superimpositions that Tristano could inflict on a 4/4 bar; that’s one reason for Larry Kart’s assertion, in The Complete Atlantic Recordings of Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz, and Wayne Marsh, that “Rhythm is the paramount issue in Tristano-related music.”

Still it’s demonstrably true that Tristano subordinated the bassist and drummer in most of his available music, at a time when the rhythm section was king. (Here is where I steer you to Ethan Iverson’s post on Tristano; scroll down, if you must, to the sections on drummers and bassists.) What interested me here was the thought that improvisers now in their 20s and 30s are willing to look past the non-dynamic rhythm sections and embrace Tristano’s music for its considerable strengths. If anyone is responsible for this, it’s Mark Turner.

When I spoke with Turner about the historical chill between Tristano and so much of the jazz world, he was quick to point to the drums:

I wouldn’t call it a good or bad thing, but in general the drummer had a pretty restricted role, particularly when Lennie was the leader. Not so much when Warne was. From what I’ve heard of people who played with him, he was really clear about what he wanted. Part of the reason is just some of the things they were doing, particularly certain accents. For example, certain ways that they would practice. Spending a certain time on eighth notes in groupings of threes, fours and twos, and then in fives and sevens. In order to get that to sound, and displace your phrases particularly -- but also in the larger sense of where you start your phrase and end your phrase-- in order for it to sound in the most strong and obvious way, the rhythm section needs to lay pretty straight.

As I mention in the piece, Konitz says something to the same effect in Conversations on the Improviser’s Art. “With the rhythm section playing straight time, with not much rhythmic counterpoint,” Konitz explains, “his lines were really clearly articulated.” I think this is an extremely sound defense of the simplicity in Tristano’s rhythm sections, and I also think it’s a valid reason to be put off by that music.

 

(Side note: while poking around the New York Times archives, I stumbled across a John S. Wilson review of a Ted Brown Quartet gig at Willy’s, a Greenwich Village club. “The rhythm section -- Ron Gruberg, bass, and Roger Mancuso, drums -- followed the bland, unaccented style that Mr. Tristano seemed to prefer from his rhythm men,” Wilson writes. “The best that can be said for this style is that it does not interfere with the Tristano ensemble manner but that it scarcely adds anything to it.” Gruberg? Mancuso? This review, incidentally, was published in the paper the day before I was born.)

But let’s get back to Mark Turner. I think it’s safe to say that his endorsement of the Tristano School, as an important young African-American jazz musician, paved the way for others, black and white, to seek out the same. (Is that not safe to say? I guess I’ll find out.) Here is saxophonist Ben Wendel, of Kneebody, on the subject: “It’s my impression that a lot of folks discovered the Tristano school through the work of Mark Turner and possibly Kurt Rosenwinkel. I know I have had at least a dozen conversations confirming this general theory.”  

Of course there have been other saxophonists of color who picked something up from Marsh and/or Konitz. “I had an email conversation with Branford Marsalis,” Iverson told me, “where he said he wished Wayne would say a bit more definitively in print how much he was influenced by Warne. The more intellectual black players like Steve Coleman and Greg Osby and Branford, all those guys who have systems in their stuff, where they really try to avoid playing pure bebop, they’re all indebted to it.”

What differentiates Turner in this regard, aside from his candor, is the way he incorporated Tristano School protocols into his own music -- with a rhythm-section upgrade. Consider this concert footage of his meaningfully titled tune “Lennie Groove,” with Chris Lightcap on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums (the 1998 studio version, featuring Brad Mehldau in his Tristano bag, is also worth seeking out):

  

Ted Brown’s indebtedness, of course, runs deep. He studied with Tristano from 1948 to ’55, paying for lessons, during one lean stretch, by helping out with housework at Tristano’s home in Flushing, Queens. (He met his wife, Phyllis, around this time; she was also a Tristano School student.)

There wasn’t room in the piece to get into Brown’s discography, so I’ll just mention a few things here. He’s featured throughout the 1956 Warne Marsh album Jazz of Two Cities, which was named after one of his tunes and leads off with another one (“Smog Eyes,” probably his best known.) Today that album comes as a package deal with some Tristano sessions from the ‘40s. 

Dig It, credited jointly to Ted Brown & Lee Konitz and released on Steeplechase in 2000, is a good representation of Brown’s present-day sound. (The rhythm section there is Ron McClure on bass, Jeff Williams on drums.)

Brown also appears as a guest on Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre, a Verve album recorded in 1959 with a coterie that includes Bill Evans; and on Konitz’s Sound of Surprise, made 40 years later with the rhythm section of guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron.

This week Brown will be playing with a bass-and-drums team of Murray Wall and Taro Okamoto. The pianist is Michael Kanan, who met Brown last spring and has played a handful of private sessions with him since. (Brown has also sat in with Kanan at Sofia’s.) 

“I feel that something that’s become attached to the Tristano approach is abstraction,” Kanan said, “and this is just my opinion, but it doesn’t seem to be where Ted is coming from at all. He’s so into swing and lyricism, in the most beautiful way, as somebody from that generation would be.”

Iverson said something similar, though a bit more explicitly critical of the Tristano School: “Warne and Tristano and the whole world of Tristano-ites kind of gave up on -- like, they love Lester Young so much but they never played anything that had that sort of clarity. It was more of this super-virtuoso super-advanced harmony pretty constantly. To me that’s a dead end in the Tristano-ites, those weirdos out there. Konitz and Ted somehow, because of their love of Lester Young, at some point went much further in a simpler vein, really trying to swing.”

Kanan, Iverson and Turner all agreed when I suggested that renewed interest in the Tristano School might have something to do with the increased nightclub presence of Konitz in the last decade or so. (Of course Iverson and Turner are not entirely objective here.) The impact of hearing Konitz playing “Body and Soul” a different way every night should not be understated. 

The same could well prove to be true for Brown, which is yet another reason to take note of his return to active duty. “That quality that I was talking about with Ted,” Kanan said, “I think it’s the same thing with Lee. As much as they want to be as free as possible, they’re still ultimately connected to their ears. They’re not just throwing notes around for the sake of coming up with weird sounds. They’re playing very singable, melodic ideas. It’s so important for the younger players to get connected to that again.”

Comments

[mampf]

One more thought: Tristano despised Monk – not due to race. The same from the other side: When somebody doesn’t like Tristano’s music, the reason isn’t race but different aesthetics. Of course, Tristano’s music is very artful, full of ideas, and virtuosic - but how does it affect me? Does it groove? Does it sound good? Does it reach my soul and my feeling for motion? Does it sound “natural” (breathing, speaking, walking, singing …)? Parker’s music did very well – though it was also very complex. Not every complex art sounds good when I learn to “understand” it.

[mampf]

I was interested in the question „What is Cool Jazz?” and I really appreciate these articles here. After reading also in some books, I think: “Cool Jazz” was a pure critics-hype. The word “cool” means a lot of things from the pureness of European classical music through to an African-American elegance and cleverness. All of these things have been elements of “Jazz” since its beginning (the cool Creole clarinets; the versatile Armstrong-lines; the white “lady made out of Jazz” etc.). But at the end of the 1940s critics thought they have to proclaim a new era – the “Cool jazz era”. Why? I think it is not exaggerated what Miles Davis said in his autobiography. It was a issue of cultural sensitivities mingled with racial identities.

When I listen to “Birth of the Cool”: It’s absolutely boring. The Tristano music is really weak in “sound” and “groove”. Who can enjoy that? This music seems to be wrapped in cotton wool. The saxophones sound like dream creatures without bones and the spooky atmosphere is compensated by a baby blue prettiness. How could this music be a further development of Parker’s music? I think, there is a good reason why the Tristano school doesn’t get an important place in every serious “Jazz” history now. Nevertheless, it is very interesting to read about the Tristano school in these articles here.

To me, also Ethan Iverson’s racial aspect is interesting. In this regard, I think: The interest in Tristano makes me think of John Zorn’s search of own roots in a (invisible) Jewishness of Burt Bacharach’s music :). “Jazz” musicians get a vast amount of influences from everywhere. Coltrane from Indian music, Ornette Coleman from Moroccan musicians, Miles Davis from Chatschaturjan, Parker playd to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite etc. etc. … … - Why shouldn’t Tristano’s ideas exert some influences? What are they exactly?

But in the end I think: The real endeavour must be to search for and to convey an idea of what is the specific sensitivity of the Armstrong-Parker-Coltrane-tradition. We know the whole European kind of thinking. But the really fascinating thing of so called “Jazz” is a bit different. That is what we have to search for.

That should be the mission of critics. Instead, they proclaimed the “Cool Jazz” and arranged it so that Parker was displaced by Konitz in the Metronome polls – a shame. That is no past: Vijay Iyer has been chosen as “Jazz musician of the year 2010”. He said that somebody else is “as important as Coltrane. He has contributed an equal amount to the history of the music. He deserves to be placed in the pantheon of pioneering artists.” But that guy doesn’t win any poll – a sham. “Cool Jazz” is always and everwhere!

I know, I'm embarrassing but why not the truth. :)

[mampf]

I’m no musician, no writer, a pure (European) listener. I’m very glad about this statement of Steve Coleman because the previous statement that he would be indepted to the Tristano-„school“ was really irritating to me. I have never felt any similarity. I guess some people think that Coleman’s rather „light“ or „cool“ ton of his earlier days would be similar to Konitz‘ ton. But I think that both tons are very different: To me, Konitz‘ ton (in Tristano’s days) sounds „neutral“, „pure“; Coleman’s former ton sounds like a slender body, which moves and grooves very versatilely and briskly.

[Steve Coleman]

Nice article, however, although they are/were all great musicians, I am not influenced by Marsh, Konitz or Tristano. That's may be Ethan's opinion, but its not true. I also never tried to avoid playing "pure bebop", because I never thought about "bebop", I don't think in those terms. I am just trying to create from the perspective of what I see, hear, and feel, but this does not mean that I am 'avoiding' something else. And I don't have a 'system'.

The statement about the "more intellectual black players" is something I really cannot get with at all. You always these kinds of statements with African-Americans that you never hear with white players, you never hear the term "intellectual white players", because the 'intellect' part is assumed. What this implies is that most black players don't possess intellect, or somehow don't demonstrate it, otherwise you would not need to use the term 'intellectual' as a qualifier for 'black player'.

Intellect is a human trait. The music of musicians in the past like Bird, Bud, Rollins, Monk, Trane, etc., were very intellectual, and this has nothing to do with color. What people do is somehow equate a unfamiliar sensibility with a lack of intellect, because the approach does not conform to the paradigm they are accustomed to.

I hope this post does not come off as me being angry, I am not angry at all. I'm just trying to set the record straight. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, and all of these people commenting here are great musicians - but some of this is being stated as if it is fact, and at least in my case, its not true.

[Ethan Iverson]

Thanks, Nate. Let's get Ted Brown some more gigs!

My two cents on my old two cents:

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/2011/01/317-cont.html

[Don]

Great piece, Nate! But found myself wondering why Connie Crothers, a great pianist who studied with Tristano, rarely seems to the recognition she deserves. Any thoughts on this?

[Steve Lehman]

Great question. It's always really complex to talk about Braxton's musical influence and how it manifests. And tracing the impact of his long-standing endorsement/enthusiasm of Tristano is no different.

In terms of the Rosenwinkel/Turner Axis and the Braxton Axis of Tristano School impact, they may overlap and intertwine more than it seems.

Speaking for myself, I love Mark Turner's playing and have learned a ton from it. I basically wore out "Dharma Days" and come back to that CD at regular intervals (speaking of an "upgraded" rhythm section, Nasheet certainly delivers, as usual). And I think Braxton exposing me to Tristano's music in 1997 and 1998 helped me to relate to "Dharma Days" in a much deeper way.

Meanwhile, here's the AMG link to Braxton's 1989 recording of Lennie Tristano's music. This was dedicated to Warne Marsh (thankfully, while he was still on the planet):

http://allmusic.com/album/eight--3-tristano-compositions-1989-for-warne-marsh-r135773

[Nate Chinen]

Of course, Braxton -- you're right, Steve, he should definitely be here, too. I didn't know about the Wesleyan course. I did know about his appreciation for Marsh and Konitz, which I always filed alongside his love of Paul Desmond.

Obviously Braxton would fit right into that Iverson quote, about "guys who have systems in their stuff." (I mean, c'mon.)

I wonder if it's accurate to plot the Turner/Rosenwinkel axis alongside the Braxton axis, as far as second- or third-generation Tristano School impact? Who would you point to as a young improviser-composer with a Tristano-via-Braxton influence?

Thanks again for the comment!

[Steve Lehman]

Great stuff as usual. Probably also important to add Anthony Braxton to the discussion of Tristano advocates. Anthony may have been the very first, highly visible, African-American musician to speak (often and very openly) on the importance of Tristano's music and its significance for him. And this was at a time when the stakes were actually fairly high -- Braxton received a good amount of harsh criticism for his endorsement of saxophonists like Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz. Anthony also teaches am undergraduate course at Wesleyan University on Tristano's music.