In the days when commercial television networks in the United States were still working their way toward the shallowness we know and love today and cable networks did not exist, there was an NBC-TV program called The Subject Is Jazz. Its host was the cultural critic Gilbert Seldes. One 1958 installment of the series explored the proposition that a fairly new tributary of the jazz mainstream ran cooler than the jazz that preceded it. The musicians were Lee Konitz, alto saxophone; Warne Marsh, tenor saxophone; Don Elliott, trumpet, mellophone and vibes; Billy Taylor, piano; Mundell Lowe, guitar; Eddie Safranski, bass; and Ed Thigpen, drums.
This investigation with examples is valuable enough that Rifftides is going to bring you the whole thing. You’ve had enough football this weekend anyway. It is necessary to post it in sections, which is how it is available. Here is part 1.
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
What a nice Sunday morning treat! Thanks! I’m so glad this material has been preserved. It shows Lee and Warne at their best, and gives a nice slice of Lee in conversation. And there are such good shots of Warne’s peculiar embouchure, with the lower jaw moving from side to side while he plays. Amazing!
I’m glad Don Elliot is presented so well. I did a lot of gigs with him in the 1950s, and he always played very well. He had so much talent he didn’t know what to do with it all. He eventually left the jazz world and made a lot of money.
This will be in my viewing library! Peter Ind will be very interested of course, since he played with and recorded most of these musicians, particularly Konitz and Warne Marsh, as well as Lennie Tristano. Keep ’em coming!
Is it just me, or does this style (“Birth of the Cool” excepted, perhaps) seem a bit “effete” in the ensemble? The soloists are amazing, of course, especially Konitz.
I notice Billy Taylor has taken the “country” out of his accent in the decades since!