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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Days Of Tristano

November 8, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

As I write this, I’m hearing Lennie Tristano talk about his admiration for Charlie Parker. The archived 1973 interview with Tristano, who died in 1978, is a part of a four-day celebration of his music by WKCR, the radio station of Columbia University. WKCR is billing it as a Tristano festival. It will run through noon EST on Saturday, November 11.
Tristano just said:

I had the best possible opportunity of anybody in the forties and fifties, because I was the only one who wasn’t doing what Bird was doing.

Tristano admirers undoubtedly know about the marathon broadcast and are listening. Those unfamiliar with his importance will be enlightened. In the New York area, tune your radio to 89.9 FM. In the rest of the world, the streaming audio is available on the web. Go here and click on “Live Broadcast” at the bottom of the page.
The following paragraphs are from the station’s news release.

A pivotal and often overlooked figure in jazz, Lennie Tristano was a virtuosic pianist whose singular achievements in performance, composition and teaching continue to resonate in today’s world. Born in 1919 in Chicago, he immersed himself in the New York scene at a time when Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were in the midst of their revolutionary collaborations. Tristano quickly integrated into the bebop community and went on to build a musical world based on a distinct concept of improvisation.
Our festival seeks to present the many sides of Tristano’s genius. In addition to an airing of his entire recorded output, there will be in depth features on his compositional techniques and teaching methodology, as well as interviews with the former colleagues and students of Tristano who represent his living legacy.
The festival will include a chronological presentation of Tristano’s complete discography, presented uninterrupted throughout the day of Friday, November 10th.

The Rifftides staff encourages comments about the broadcast and about Tristano. Please use the comment link at the bottom of this posting or send an e-mail message to the address in the right column.

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Comments

  1. jan Herman says

    November 8, 2006 at 7:19 am

    Thanks for the tip. Just tuned in, and love what I’m hearing.

  2. George Ziskind says

    November 8, 2006 at 10:57 pm

    Around 9:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, I’ll be telling Phil Schaap about my being one of Lennie’s first five or six students, back in Chicago, circa ’45.
    George Ziskind
    New York

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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