Pure improvisation: two generations of searching saxophonists meet over a working trio. Lee Konitz has a long history of working well with a tenor player - notably Warne Marsh - and Mark Turner is the ideal contemporary foil. They recorded a few tracks together on the fine album Parallels but this will be their first extended chance to inspire each other in a club.
Albert Heath is bit younger than Konitz. They haven’t played together since the 1960’s, but Heath did record and play frequently with Warne Marsh in the 1980’s. Recently Heath has been regularly hitting with Ethan Iverson and Ben Street downtown at Smalls. This trio will release a live record of bebop tunes in 2010.
Turner, Iverson, and Street know each other well, having collaborated in various configurations over the last 15 years: with Kurt Rosenwinkel, with Billy Hart, and in their own bands. All five of these musicians believe in both knowing and exploding the authentic jazz language. Expect sparks to fly as all these intriguing connections heat up onstage at the Iridium.
Alto Saxophonist Lee Konitz has enjoyed one of the most creative and prolific careers in modern jazz. After early experience with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra (arranged by Gil Evans), Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, the innovative small groups of pianist LennieTristano, and the Miles Davis Capitol Orchestra, Konitz turned freelance and has remained on the cutting edge of post-bop improvisation ever since. He has occasionally led a nonet (now resurrected!) and various quartets, but his exceptionally large and varied discography also includes an early unaccompanied saxophone solo album, several innovative albums of duets that spanned jazz styles, and collaborations which reads like the “who’s who” of the Jazz world. Lee Konitz is the only still active musician to have played all three ever existing Birdland clubs in New York City.
He has occasionally led a nonet (now resurrected!) and various quartets, but his exceptionally large and varied discography also includes an early
unaccompanied saxophone solo album, several innovative albums of duets that spanned jazz styles, and collaborations which reads like the “who’s who” of the Jazz world. Lee Konitz is the only still active musician to have played all three ever existing Birdland clubs in New York City.
Like Gil Evans or Coleman Hawkins Lee is always open and interested to play with young musicians and participates in exciting new musical projects
co-lead by them (like the Lee Konitz NewNonet or the Lee Konitz-Ohad Talmor String Project). Lee Konitz was named Alto Saxophonist of the year by
Downbeat Magazine (critics poll) numerous times.
Born November 10, 1965 in Fairborn, Ohio, Mark Turner moved with his family to California when he was four. Turner started playing clarinet at 9 then later switched to alto then tenor saxophone as a teenager. He studied art at Long Beach State and California College of Arts and Crafts. He then transfered to Berklee College of Music graduating in 1990 with a BM in performance. Since moving to New York he has worked and or recorded with musicians such as Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Holland, Paul Motian, Brad Meldau, John Pattitucci, Dave Douglas, Billy Hart, Lee Konitz and James Moody. He is on dozens of recordings as a sideman as well as five of his own recordings.
