An Evening With Lee Konitz and Frank Wunsch

Duo album by Lee Konitz and Frank Wunsch. "Our first duo concert in G?ttingen was not entirely successful. I made the mistake that many musicians make when playing duo with Lee for the first time: I played too much. He told me, ''You don't have to give me the beat, I've got it in me.'' We talked a lot about music in general and improvisation in particular and discovered that we shared the same playing ideal: that the music should always sound like we just invented it and that a piece should sound different at every performance. A definite highlight of our duo collaboration was our performance at the 1995 Frankfurt Jazz Festival - CD, The Frankfurt Concert. Lee knew all the standards, but in his last 25 years he always played the same ones, drawing from a repertoire of about 25 pieces. He once told me, ''Frank, if I live to be a hundred, I'll still be able to play new lines every day on All The Things You Are.'' In the recording of our concert from the LOFT in Cologne, which is documented on this CD, Lee begins with Alone Together, has the audience sing the keynote, whistles and sings and plays around the melody on the saxophone. Lydian Adventure is my solo improvisation, with occasional echoes of All The Things You Are and my piece Lydia. Out of the Deep is our version of How Deep is the Ocean. On Body and Soul, Lee begins one of his famous solo cadenzas at the end, but then breaks it off, for reasons that are no longer clear. But I find this version to be inspired and worthwhile, even without the cadenza, and I worked on the ending in the studio with Christian Heck. Unfortunately, it's not totally satisfying, but that's all I could get out of it. You're a Weaver of Dreams segues into a free improvisation that leads to Subconscious-Lee, Lee's famous take on What is This Thing Called Love. Thingin' is based on All The Things You Are, with the harmonies set a tritone lower at the middle section. It's You is Lee's variation on It's You Or No One. The LOFT was packed that night. Charlie Mariano was there and a lot of students and lecturers from the conservatory. They seemed to like what they heard. I hope, dear listeners, that you, too, will get a lot of pleasure from this music!" Cologne, May 2021 - Frank Wunsch | Translation: Miriamne Fields