Lee Konitz - Standards Live

알토 섹스폰의 전설 '리 코니츠'의 빌리지 벵가드 실황판 'Standards Live"

독일 피아니스트 피아니스트 플로리안 웨버 (Fianist Florian Weber),

미국 베이시스트 제프 덴슨 (Jeff Denson),

이스라엘 드러머 지브 라 비츠 (Ziv Ravitz)

인터내셔널 NEW LEE KONITZ QUARTET

The Great American Song Book has been in focus of alto saxophone legend Lee Konitz for most of his improvisers life.

For years he returns on stage or studios to the great standards constantly exploring the harmonic and rhythmic structures, never repeating himself in his solo work. At the Vanguard recording session he made it a point to nearly disguise the melody and let the audience guess which standard he actually improvised on kind of testing the musical qualities of the listeners who had great fun in this game. Some songs were played quite straight ahead, others were more difficult to decipher. It became immediately evident what great material he had picked to improvise upon. This approach did not only work perfectly well for Lee but for his colleagues as well. German pianist Pianist Florian Weber, US bassist Jeff Denson and Israeli drummer Ziv Ravitz felt fully at home with Lees demanding concept and used the freedom it gave them to fascinating results. He was so impressed by this international trio that he called their association THE NEW LEE KONITZ QUARTET, pointing out that he hadnt had his own regular group for decades. The band now works on and off with Lee Konitz in Europe, the US and Japan. Lee had lived in Cologne, Germany with his family for 20 years before returning to New York. The last time he had played at the Village Vanguard was 1983 and the New York press gave him a great Welcome Home, Lee and a half page article in the New York Times. The audience loved those two days at the packed Vanguard in spring 2009. Lee holds that this and the previous release of the Village Vanguard session (ENJ-9542 2) are a high point in his long career. -- Matthias Winckelmann.