(Cool, Post-Bop) Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh - Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh - 1956, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

From their entrance together in this set, after the opening bass beats in Topsy, right through to the last measures of Backgound Music, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh exhibit that elegance of sound and subtlety of time, together and apart, which distinguish them beyond most other present-day practitioners of the art of saxophone. Whatever other excellences, skills, ingenuities other altomen or tenor saxists may possess, the arts of tone and time are Lee's and Warne's and in these they revel and romp across both sides of this rich display of their talents. Because of the commanding authority of their blended sounds, the fine old Basie classic, Topsy, has the persuasive brilliance of a big-band performance while retaining the relaxation and intimacy only a small-band improvisation can offer in jazz. Because of their appreciation of the nuances of time that make modern jazz such a challenge to anybody brought up in any older version of this music, they make Charlie Parker's Donna Lee into a fresh piece, and not only in their own contributions to the work, but also in their performance of the familiar unison line which Bird first blew on records with Miles Davis.
Sound and time, however, are not enough; it is what they are used to hold together that makes them of such importance in the jazz of this decade. And that is? Why the melodic line of course; and beyond everything else it is the melodic line that Lee and Warne woo and win in their music, whether they start with somebody else's or make up their own as they go along. Now to make a melody appealing, a sweet, a tender, a rasping, a throaty, or a tough sound - whatever is called for - helps considerably. Lee and Warne generally fit the sound to the tune, inclining with their tastes in melody to the sweet and lovely, but not the tremulous and treacly: they have too much respect for their instruments to indulge themselves in sweaty vibratos.
To give a line the kind of rhythmic impulse that makes it jazz calls for a tricky sense of time, not syncopation necessarily, nor simply a metronomic steadiness of beat, but a delicate feeling for odd accents and even stresses, and all effected with such continuity that, as in the playing of Charlie Parker, the beat may be most irresistible in the rests. At its best, as in / Can't Get Started or Background Music in this collection, such playing makes the whole performance into one long melodic line, starting with the first note and ending with the last. This is the secret of Baroque music, of Bach's most moving lines, and at a lower level, not quite so ambitious, but not so far removed as many might think, it is the driving impetus of the jazz of musicians of this heady school.
It isn't difficult to hear, to feel, to dig - any verb that describes your own response will do - the continuity in such performances as the first and last of the eight bound together here, or such up-tempo exercises as There Will Never Be Another You and Donna Lee. In Lennie Tristano's Two Not One; however, it isn't quite so obvious; but it's all the more captivating when you get it. What you get - when the tune does get to you - is first of all the way it starts, on the second rather than the customary first beat of the measure, and then the way Sal Mosca's diverting piano solo is drawn into the total work, the way it is linked to the unison line and the individual sax solos by the soft background line Lee and Warne play behind the piano and Sal then joins to his own line. Similarly, Billy Bauer moves in and out of the sax solos in the meditative version of / Can't Get Started, sans piano, which all three musicians, Warne and Lee and Billy, produce; and in the same way, Ronnie Ball, chording, solo, with the saxists and alone, makes his every note a part of a handsomely organized whole in his one appearance in the album in a middle-tempo figure of his own devising called, suitably enough, Ronnie's Line.
The longest of the tracks is devoted to Oscar Pettiford's blues, Don't Squawk. Oscar sets tempo, mood, line and almost everything else on his bass; then the saxists and Sal, in an unusual groove for them, carry on in relaxed, almost torchy fashion. It's not what you would expect from these musicians, but it adds a pleasant variety and change of pace to the outing and shows Lee and Warne at ease in an unfamiliar, if time-honored, setting.
Throughout the set, there is another contribution to be noted: the now efficient, now enthusiastic, now covert, now capricious drumming of Kenny Clarke, who has proved himself, in person as on this record, a remarkably adept drummer for musicians of the Tristano school. In his case too, it is matter of time and - rara avis among those who ply the hides and cymbals - sound, sound which he controls and varies as much as he does his accented and accentless drumming to fit the individual pieces. Such an understand ing of the drumming trade makes one realize how much musicianship can be brought into this most responsible corner of the jazz group.
There is much, then, to listen for and to hear in this collection: tones and timing an moving solos, figures that show much craftsmanship in the planning and the execution but most of all, as I hope I have made clear, continuity. When you have had your fill с just plain listening for pleasure, play it all again, a track at a time, paying particular attention to the way each of the performances makes its way from the first measure to the last, adding variations and developments, repeating, changing, achieving either a balanced symmetry through repetition or a kind of wry asymmetry through changes, but almost always moving forward - like a train that must arrive on time or the mails in the old days - to its inevitable conclusion. This is the jazz thinking of the musicians of a brilliant contemporary school, and a most satisfactory kind of thinking it is, at least to those of us who are convinced that along with the show of feeling with which jazz and jazzmen have always been abundantly endowed a substantial amount of thought can go comfortably, fittingly, and pleasingly.

236404541 58125020 01 - Topsy.wav
2079892677 51003164 02 - There Will Never Be Another You.wav
1488947984 42082028 03 - I Can't Get Started.wav
2058160296 66592220 04 - Donna Lee.wav
2032783644 59223404 05 - Two Not One.wav
1790232724 77761868 06 - Don't Squawk.wav
281223158 33516044 07 - Ronnies Line.wav
4001203037 60869804 08 - Backgroud Music.wav
auCDtect: CD records authenticity detector, version 0.8.2
Copyright (c) 2004 Oleg Berngardt. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2004 Alexander Djourik. All rights reserved.
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Processing file: [01 - Topsy.wav]
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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%
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Processing file: [02 - There Will Never Be Another You.wav]
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Processing file: [03 - I Can't Get Started.wav]
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Processing file: [04 - Donna Lee.wav]
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This track looks like CDDA with probability 85%
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Processing file: [05 - Two Not One.wav]
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Processing file: [06 - Don't Squawk.wav]
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Processing file: [07 - Ronnies Line.wav]
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Processing file: [08 - Backgroud Music.wav]
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Final Conclusion:
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These tracks looks like CDDA with probability 100%