Five-Star Collection... The Down Beat Five-Star History (Part II)

In the previous post, we revisited the origins of Down Beat's first attempt to formalize its record-rating system through simple note symbols.

In this second part, we turn to the moment when the magazine tried to sharpen its critical tools with a short-lived but revealing experiment:

✤ 1951✤ 

A Brief Experiment in Precision:

Down Beat's 1951 One-to-Ten Rating Scale

By 1951, Down Beat felt the need for greater nuance in its reviews. The solution was a short-lived numerical scale running from 1 to 10, an attempt to introduce finer gradations of quality at a moment when the LP era was just beginning to reshape listening habits.

Here we revisit that transitional system and reproduce the magazine’s statement explaining its purpose and scope.

In the January 26, 1951 issue, the section "What’s On Wax"—written by Jack Tracy, Pat Harris, and George Hoefer—introduced a far more precise numerical scale ranging from 1 to 10.

Each reviewer assigned a score, and the final rating printed in the review was the average of the three.

The announcement read:

"With this issue, Down Beat inaugurates a new system for rating records. It is our hope that it will be of increased value to you in helping you choose those records you plan to add to your own collection.

Records are rated by each of the three reviewers on a scale of 1 to 10, with the rating increasing with the quality of the record. The final veredict is an average of the individual scores and will be found in front of the tittles listed at the head of each review. Albums will continue to be judged as a whole, with individual comments on those sides meriting them".

It was a clear attempt to bring greater objectivity and consistency to Down Beat's expanding review section.

Which was the first artist reviewed who received the highest score?

None... throughout the entire period that this criterion was applied, no record reached the level of excellence.

The only one who came close was Lee Koniz with 9 points.

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Lee Konitz 

9 - Rebecca

7 - Ice Cream Konitz

Jack: Lee delicately and feelingly picks his way through Rebecca (My Old Flame). He's backed only by Billy Bauer's guitar. Beautifully done, thoughtfully expressive, it's some of Lee's best recorded ballad work to date. Ice Cream has Bauer, Arnold Fishkin, drummer Jeff Morton, and pianist Sal Mosca backing Lee. It's uptempo, with Lee fleet but not as fertile as usual, and Bauer and Mosca taking choruses. 

Rating: Rebecca—9; Ice Cream—7.

George: Lee's Rebecca is a note of beauty rare in the field of jazz. The delicacy of his alto tone and phrasing is brought out in bold relief by Bauer's sympathetic guitar. The side is a study in perfect execution. Ice Cream, a Konitz original, is typical Tristano fare without the participation of Lennie. Sal Mosca takes over the piano and closes the side with a sprightly solo. Nothing outstanding happening, but nice listening. 

Rating: Rebecca—9; Ice Cream Konitz—7.

Pat: Konitz' dainty alto, cool just to the point of chillness, but not quite, traces tastefully through Konitz. Note the smooth way Sal Mosca's piano takes over after Billy Bauer's solo on this one. Rebecca, named after Lee's baby daughter, is a fine fatherly tribute. Very lovely and delicate, Lee manages to be sunny and wistful at the same time. (New Jazz 834.)

Rating: Rebecca—8; Ice Cream—7

The restored version of these tracks was included on one of the CDs in the Original Jazz Classics series.

Lee Konitz

With Tristano, Marsh And Bauer

Subconscious-Lee

Of the Lennie Tristano "school" of music, which predated the Lennie Tristano School of Music, Lee Konitz is the outstanding "pupil". Naturally Lennie's music had a great influence on Lee. Other influences are lesser and have been more completely absorbed in to the mainstream of his playing. For instance, in his rhythmic figures you can hear Charlie Parker (Bird left very few untouched and unmoved,) but whatever sources Lee has drawn on have been integrated beautifully into his personal expression. His style and sound are both highly personal. The point of excellence as an individual voice is a signal triumph for any artist.

The three sessions in this LP show Lee off in many different ways with quintet, quartet and duo. The interplay with Tristano, duetting with Billy Bauer and unisons and exchanges with Warne Marsh are all self-illuminating examples of Lee's early work in this graphic collection of Konitz.

Incidentally, the Subconscious-Lee session not only launched Lee's career but was the first recording date of this company. New Jazz was then the label. *Ira Gitler (liner notes)*

One of THE key records in the Konitz school — a full length Prestige album that brings together important material from sessions originally issued on 10" LPs! The lineup here is virtually the Konitz school — with shifting lineups that include Billy Bauer on guitar, Lenny Tristano or Sal Mosca on piano, and Warne Marsh on tenor — all working as airily and fluidly as Konitz himself! How Lee managed to achieve such unity with his groups here will forever be a mystery to us — as will the freshness of the work at the end of the 40s, especially given that it's still arguably more "modern" than much of the jazz it inspired in years to come! Titles include "Progression", "Subconscious-Lee", "Rebecca", "Sound-Lee", "Fishin Around", "Palo Alto", "Ice Cream Konitz", "You Go To My Head", and "Tautology".  *Dusty Groove, Inc.*

1 - Progression

(Konitz)

2 - Tautology

(Konitz)

3 - Retrospection

(Tristano)

4 - Subconscious-Lee

(Konitz)

5 - Judy

(Tristano)

6 - Marshmallow

(Marsh)

7 - Fishin' Around

(Marsh)

8 - Tautology

(Konitz)

9 - Sound-Lee

(Konitz)

10 - Rebecca

(Konitz)

11 - You Go to My Head

(Coots, Gillespie)

12 - Ice Cream Konitz

(Konitz)

13 - Palo Alto

(Konitz)

#1 to #5:

Lee Konitz (alto sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Lennie Tristano (piano),

Arnold Fishkin (bass), Shelly Manne (drums).

Recorded in New York City, November 1, 1949

#6 to #9:

Lee Konitz (alto sax); Warne Marsh (tenor sax); Sal Mosca (piano);

Arnold Fishkin (bass); Denzil Best [#6, #7], Jeff Morton [#8, #9] (drums).

Recorded in New York City, September, 1949

#9 to #13:

Lee Konitz (alto sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Sal Mosca (piano),

Arnold Fishkin (bass), Jeff Morton (drums).

Recorded in New York City, July 4, 1950

Five-Star Collection... Lennie Tristano

Lennie Tristano

Tristano

A great many people are going to be surprised by this set. It presents a Lennie Tristano far removed from the figure of their — and the critics' — imagination. Uncompromising he may be, as has been noted many a time, in the public prints and in private discussions. But remote, inaccessible, recondit he is not, except in the sense that any first-rate artist has ideas to offer which are necessarily his own and nobody else's and hence so fresh, so crisp, so inspired as to seem — or sound — altogether new and quite thoroughly removed from any familiar thinking — or playing-pattern, No, there is nothing really obscure about Lennie's playing here, nothing really beyond the grasp of anybody with any feeling for, or fairly considerable listening experience in, jazz.

This is jazz, no mistaking it for anything else. It meets all the requirements: it is improvised, brilliantly adding ideas to ideas all the way through; it swings, rapturously, whether up or middling-up or slow in tempo; it offers, both in Lennie’s playing with bass and drums and with Lee Konitz and rhythm, that delicate internal tension, that collective creativity which is the special identifying mark of the real thing in this music.

And so it is to the jazz in this record that I suggest you listen, forgetting, if you can, any preconceived notions about what Lennie Tristano represents in modern music, anything you may have read about his personality, his ideas, his group, his students or teaching method or anything much besides, no matter how directly relevant it may seem to you. Isn't it, after all, in a man's painting, if he is a painter, in his poetry, if he is a poet, or in his music, if he is a composer, that one should look for his personality, his ideas, or anything else of any sizable significance? And isn't this particularly true of jazz, where a performer composes as he blows, if he is a genuine jazz musician, and therefore exposes himself more honestly than in most arts? And if it isn't true, then why bother — why bother painting or writing or composing or blowing in the first place? and why bother looking or reading or listening in the second?

After listening to these tracks, I think you’ll agree with me that what you have heard is impression enough of the Tristano thinking processes and that, unquestionably, Lennie's ideas must seek musical outlet, must find jazz outlet, and we must pay attention, hard, earnest attention, and do so with every sort of listening ease.

(...)

Balance all around is to be found in this collection: a trial balance of tempo and time and personality differences which accounts for the jockeying of tapes and changing of speeds and multiplication of piano lines in Lennie's solo tracks; a tested balance of soloists and tunes and tempos and personalities which accounts for the orderly procedure and unmitigated pleasure of the alto and piano solos and duos in the tracks Lennie and Lee play together. And all of it — and this I cannot insist upon too strongly — comes out jazz, real jazz, great jazz.

*Barry Ulanov (from the liner notes)*

Lennie Tristano's first LP in several years is an absorbing. The first four tracks were recorded by Lennie at his own private recording studio. On the first, he superimposed his piano over a previous tape of bassist Peter Ind and drummer Jeff Morton after he adjusted to his satisfaction what they had done. The second has paired piano lines. On the third he taped three lines, one on top of the other. On the fourth he did what he had done in the first. The last five tracks were recorded at the Sing Song room of the Confucius restaurant last summer with Lee Konitz, Gene Ramey, and Arthur Taylor.

Throughout there is every evidence of a Tristano who has continued to grow and deepen. He is still very much his own man, a man who is driven to continue searching to find and challenge more of himself in his music. He plays authoritatively with a propulsive, intensely alive forcefulness (see tracks one and four, for example.) Anyone still suspecting his ability to communicate emotion should hear the naked power in the >Requiem< blues he plays for Charlie Parker. On the ballad sides with Lee, there is a richer, deeper though never ornamental lyricism than Lennie has shown on records before. And always, there is his imaginative resourcefulness, an imagination, however, that works organically, for there is never the touch of patchwork in any Tristano performance. It all comes from inside the development of the music — and the man. Konitz is lucid, logical, unfailingly interesting, and increasingly emotional.

Two footnotes: dig the further possibilities of multirhythms as explored by Tristano in Turkish Mambo. Secondly, Barry Ulanov states in connection with Lennie's adjusting the bass and drum take before superimposing his piano to it: "The great day for jazz will be when rhythm sections — one or two or three musicians large — will be able to think and play and beat that steadily, with such regularity and rapidity and imagination, that it will be possible to record alongside them instead of over them." It's true Lennie has problems finding the exactly right rhythm section for him, but that's no reason to maintain that there aren't rhythm sections for others that can very successfully be recorded alongside instead of over. The situation rhythm-section-wise in jazz is far from that bad. There's always a need for more firstrate rhythm men, but let's not put down the strong nucleus of them we have.

The recorded sound Lennie gets in his studio excellent. Confucius sound is good but could have been better. *Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, April 18, 1956 [5 stars])*

1 - Line Up

(Lennie Tristano)

2 - Requiem

(Lennie Tristano)

3 - Turkish Mambo

(Lennie Tristano)

4 - East Thirty-Second

(Lennie Tristano)

5 - These Foolish Things

(Link, Strachey, Marvell)

6 -  You Go To My Head

(J. K. Coots)

7 - If I Had You

(Shapiro, Campbell, Connelly)

8 - Ghost Of A Chance

(Crosby, Washington, Young)

9 - All The Things You Are

(Kern, Hammerstein)

#1 to #4:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Peter Ind (bass), Jeff Morton (drums).

Recorded at Tristano's Home Studio, New York City, 1955

#5 to #9:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Gene Ramey (bass), Art Taylor (drums).

Recorded live at The Sing Song Room, Confucius Restaurant, New York City, June 11, 1955

Lennie Tristano - Classics 1947–1951

When Lennie Tristano's enclosed Capitol recordings were reissued in the mid-eighties, Alun Morgan noted that the music "is still a most remarkable piece of mind-reading and it presaged the Free Form movement which was still several years away". 

Leonard Joseph Tristano was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 19 1919. He began playing piano as a child. At the age of nine, he lost his eyesight and spent the next ten years in a home for the blind. During these years Tristano took up the clarinet, saxophone and also practiced on cello. In addition, he played trumpet and could easily sit in as a drummer. 

Lennie Tristano received further musical education at the American Conservatory in Chicago from which he graduated as a Bachelor of Music (in piano and composition) in 1943. From the early forties on Tristano worked as a tenor saxophonist and clarinetist with various bands in his native city. In addition, he taught at the Christiansen School of Popular Music until 1945. Lee Konitz and Bill Russo were among his first and foremost students. The following year Tristano moved to New York where he appeared with a trio including another two of his pupils, Arnold Fishkin and Billy Bauer. In late 1946 Lennie Tristano also played on the West Coast before returning to New York. In 1947 he played in a band organized by critic Barry Ulanov alongside Charlie Parker. During the late forties Tristano mainly worked with his trio in New York but occasionally also played with Charlie Ventura and others. In addition, he continued to teach and a group of young musicians, including Warne Marsh and Ted Brown formed around him. In June 1951 he opened his own music school where Tristano and his circle were able to pratice and play their music, quite independently from any influences of more established institutions. After giving up his school in 1956, he taught disciples at his home on Long Island. After the mid-fifties Tristano only rarely appeared on stage or in clubs. In the late-sixties Tristano made trips to Britain and Canada for a number of solo concerts but then returned to the self-sought seclusion of his home. He died in New York, on November 18, 1978. *Anatol Schenker (liner notes)*

This anthology of Lennie Tristano from his Capitol and Prestige recordings is where the mature composer and improviser appears from his former skeleton. Beginning with the original version of "Dissonance", featuring guitarist Billy Bauer and bassist Arnold Fishkin, the set concentrates on Tristano's emerging and very complex ideas about melodic improvisation. The masters for early tracks here come from a session cut on New Year's Eve in 1947, and include clarinetist John LaPorta on such visionary compositions as "Through These Portals", with its dual melodic front line playing an extrapolated harmonic counterpoint via the piano and guitar, then being bridged by a common third line played by LaPorta, whose solo is almost a tag upon the two entwining solo lines played throughout. "Speculation" is pure chordal genius, with rhythms cascading in two directions against a nearly expressionistic melodic integration of variously shaded harmonics. The first sessions of both the quintet and quartet with Lee Konitz are here, too, with Konitz's unique phrasing on the shimmering bop of "Progression", "Tautology", and, of course, "Subconscious-Lee". Tristano was a giant of the intellect, and his knotty approach to deconstructing harmonics and creating new melodies from the ruins appealed to Konitz, who was, and remains, a melodist. Later that same year, in 1949, Tristano added second saxophonist Warne Marsh to the mix, and that magical pairing found its voice on the front lines of "Crosscurrent", "Intuition", and the stellar "Marionette". Finally, the 1951 trio sides with Roy Haynes and Peter Ind make clear that these new architectures Tristano was building could be erected by himself and a rhythm section, and in some ways were even bigger as a result of that. These ideas have never been fully integrated into the jazz canon as they should be, but nonetheless, with recordings like this abounding now, it cannot be long before they are. 

*Thom Jurek*

1 - Dissonance

(Tristano) 

2 - Through These Portals

(LaPorta)

3 - Speculation (Ear, Eyes)

 (Tristano)

4 - New Sound

(Tristano)

5 - Resemblance

(Tristano)

6 - Tautology

(Konitz)

8 - Retrospection

(Tristano)

9 - Subconscious-Lee

(Konitz)

10 - Judy

(Tristano)

11 - Wow

(Tristano)

12 - Crosscurrent

(Tristano)

13 - Yesterdays

(Tristano)

14 - Marionette

(Bauer)

15 - Sax Of A Kind

(Konitz, Marsh)

16 - Intuition

(Tristano)

17 - Digression (Intuition II)

(Tristano)

18 - Ju-Ju

(Tristano)

19 - Passtime

(Tristano)

#1 to #5:

Lennie Tristano (piano), John LaPorta (clarinet [#2 to #5]), Billy Bauer (guitar), Arnold Fishkin (bass).

Recorded in New York City, December 31, 1947.

#6 to #10:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Shelly Manne (drums).

Recorded in New York City, January 11, 1949.

#11, #12:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Warne Marsh (tenor sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Harold Granowsky (drums).

Recorded in New York City, March 4, 1949.

#13:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Billy Bauer (guitar), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Harold Granowsky (drums).

Recorded in New York City, March 14, 1949.

#14 to #17:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Warne Marsh (tenor sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Denzil Best (drums).

Recorded in New York City, May 16, 1949.

#18, #19:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Peter Ind (bass), Roy Haynes (drums).

Recorded in New York City, October 30, 1951. 

Lee Konitz - Subconscious-Lee

Of the Lennie Tristano "school" of music, which predated the Lennie Tristano School of Music, Lee Konitz is the outstanding "pupil". Naturally Lennie's music had a great influence on Lee. Other influences are lesser and have been more completely absorbed in to the mainstream of his playing. For instance, in his rhythmic figures you can hear Charlie Parker (Bird left very few untouched and unmoved) but whatever sources Lee has drawn on have been integrated beautifully into his personal expression. His style and sound are both highly personal. The point of excellence as an individual voice is a signal triumph for any artist.

The three sessions in this LP show Lee off in many different ways with quintet, quartet and duo. The interplay with Tristano, duetting with Billy Bauer and unisons and exchanges with Warne Marsh are all self-illuminating examples of Lee's early work in this graphic collection of Konitz.

Incidentally, the Subconscious-Lee session not only launched Lee's career but was the first recording date of this company. New Jazz was then the label. * Ira Gitler*

One of THE key records in the Konitz school – a full length Prestige album that brings together important material from sessions originally issued on 10" LPs! The lineup here is virtually the Konitz school – with shifting lineups that include Billy Bauer on guitar, Lenny Tristano or Sal Mosca on piano, and Warne Marsh on tenor – all working as airily and fluidly as Konitz himself! How Lee managed to achieve such unity with his groups here will forever be a mystery to us – as will the freshness of the work at the end of the 40s, especially given that it's still arguably more "modern" than much of the jazz it inspired in years to come! *dustygroove.com*

A debut for both Lee Konitz and the Prestige label, Subconscious-Lee brings together many of the students who came through Lennie Tristano's idiosyncratic "school" of jazz during the immediate postwar years. Forging a heady approach to Charlie Parker's innovations, full of lithe and at times super fast solo lines, Tristano and his favorite pupil Konitz in particular nurtured an introverted, wan, yet still swinging alternative to the frenetic muscle of bebop. Other students like tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, pianist Sal Mosca, and bassist Arnold Fishkin staked claims as well and show up prominently here. And while Tristano's "Judy" and "Retrospection" get mired in somewhat tired contemplation, Konitz' "Subconscious-Lee" and Marsh's "Marshmallow" stand out with brisk tempos, cascading horn lines, and fetching head statements. Avoiding the meandering course of his originals, Tristano shines at the piano with a bevy of exciting and substantial solos; Mosca and guitarist Billy Bauer keep up the good work with fine contributions of their own. Good for both mind and feet and chock-full of groundbreaking work by Konitz and Marsh especially, this 1949-1950 recording makes for essential jazz listening. One bonus track, "Progression," is added to thisversiónn of  Subconscious-Lee. *Stephen Cook *

Recorded during the prime of bebop, between 1949 and 1950, Lee Konitz' Subconscious-Lee seems practically at odds with itself. It lacks the peculiarity and the exuberance that pours from the recordings of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and other post-swing experimentalists. It simultaneously seems old-fashioned and futuristic. Lee Konitz, who developed under the tutelage of pianist and pedagogue Lennie Tristano, was perhaps equally influenced by the technical fireworks of bebop, and Tristano's firm mindset. Tristano held that the rhythm section occupied a secondary role, and that improvisation should avoid overt sentimentality. Instead, Tristano and his students valued complexity andprecisiónn of harmony and rhythm. Their pursuit of pure musical devices, unaccompanied by emotional expression, is clearly evident on Subconscious-Lee, on which a sense of cool and detached concentration encircles the performances. The combination of impressive and inventive playing with a generally uncaring approach can be likened to the grunge rock movement of the late 1990s, when bands like Nirvana appeared to have no interest in winning over an audience, and all the while delivered powerful and deeply moving music. In other words, Konitz, Tristano, and frequent collaborator Warne Marsh, sound too cool for school. Tristano believed that a rhythm section's role was simply to provide the structure over which the improvisers could drape their melodies. He counseled drummers and bassists not to interact with soloists, and not to take the lead in musical events, such as swells in intensity. For this reason, much of this album, like others by Tristano, Marsh, and Konitz, sounds similar to antiquated practices of the hot jazz era, when the only instrumentalists given license to elaborate were the trumpeter and clarinetist. On the other hand, the rhythmic activity that Konitz and Marsh use to create winding and unpredictable lines sound as if they fit better into jazz from the 21st century. In fact, the contemporary jazz practice of disguising formal structure and steering clear of well-worn harmonic paths may have been in part influenced by this very school of improvisation.

Subconscious-Lee has one foot stubbornly planted in the past, and the other dangling in the capricious future. *Jacob Teichroew*

1 - Subconscious-Lee

(Lee Konitz)

2 - Judy

(Lennie Tristano)

3 - Progression

(Lee Konitz)

4 - Retrospection

(Lennie Tristano)

5 - Ice Cream Konitz

(Lee Konitz)

6 - You Go To My Head

(Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie)

7 - Marshmallow

(Warne Marsh)

8 - Fishin' Around

(Warne Marsh)

9 - Tautology

(Lee Konitz)

10 - Sound-Lee

(Lee Konitz)

11 - Palo Alto

(Lee Konitz)

12 - Rebecca

(Lee Konitz)

#1 to #4:
Lee Konitz (alto sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Lennie Tristano (piano), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Shelly Manne (drums [#2, #3 out]).
Recorded in New York City, January 11, 1949.
#7, #8:
Lee Konitz (alto sax), Warne Marsh (tenor sax), Sal Mosca (piano), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Denzil Best (drums).
Recorded in New York City, June 28, 1949.
#9, #10:
Lee Konitz (alto sax), Warne Marsh (tenor sax), Sal Mosca (piano), Arnold Fishkin (bass), Jeff Morton (drums).
Recorded in New York City, September 27, 1949.
#5, #6, #11, #12:
Lee Konitz (alto sax), Billy Bauer (guitar), Sal Mosca (piano [#6 out]), Arnold Fishkin (bass [#12 out]), Jeff Morton (drums [#12 out]).
Recorded in New York City, April 7, 1950.