Tristano School
General Info
The Tristano School was one of the three mainstreams of the Cool Jazz movement in
the late forties and early fifties. (The other ones were West Coast Jazz and the
group around Miles Davis and Gil Evans including other former bop musicians like
the MJQ.) There are two institutions which are called "Tristano School": First,
the group of musicians led by pianist Lennie Tristano and including Lee Konitz
(as), Warne Marsh (ts), Billy Bauer (g), Sal Mosca (p) and Arnold Fishkin (b).
This group existed from 1946, when Tristano moved to New York, to 1951 when he
found his "New School of Music". The latter is the second institution called
"Tristano School". It was one of the first real jazz academies. His pupils were
such important musicians as Bud Freeman, Art Pepper, Bob Wilber and Mary Lou
Williams. The teachers were some of the musicians Tristano had played with in the
earlier period,for example Konitz, Bauer and Marsh. In 1956 he dissolved the
school and after that he only performed very occasionally. Now we will focus on
the time from 1946 to 1951, because our main intention is to write about his
music. The music wasn't very popular (similar to the music of the Miles Davis
Capitol Band), because many people found it cold, too intellectual and without
any emotion. But perhaps they were the only non-bop musicians who played a
really new kind of jazz during the second half of the 1940's. The soloists
played long and abstract lines which were inspired by swing musicians like Lester
Young, Teddy Wilson and Charlie Christian and bop musicians like Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Parker. Tristano didn't like vital drummers like Art Blakey, Kenny
Clarke or Max Roach. His drummers had just to be timekeepers, and sometimes he
recorded without one. He also experimented with free improvisitation (similar to
the Jazz of the 1960's) for example on "Intuition" and "Digression" and with
overdubbing technology for example on "Juju", "Pastime" and "Descent into the
Maelstrom".
Lennie Tristano
Lennie Tristano was born in Chicago in 1919. His parents were poor Italian
emigrants and he became blind when he was a child. From 1928 to 1938 he was at a
school for the blind where he learned several instruments (piano, clarinet,
saxophone, violoncello). After this he continued his studies at the American
Conservatory in Chicago until 1943. Until 1946 he worked as a private teacher and
played in semiprofessional groups around Chicago. He seems to have already been
quite a charismatic person at this time so guitarist Billy Bauer left the Woody
Herman Big Band to play with Tristano and changed his whole musical point of view
after meeting him. Bassist Chubby Jackson also playing with Herman at this time
was deeply impressed by Tristano, helped him to move to New York and gave him
first opportunities to play there. In New York he met bop musicians like Charlie
Parker, with whom he recorded a few times in the following years. Tristano was not
a bop musician, but the two main influences on his kind of playing the piano -
his main instrument - were Art Tatum and Bop. In the 1950's, when he worked as a
teacher, his pupils had to transcribe bop solos. In New York he started working
together with the musicians of his legendary sextet (Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh,
Billy Bauer, himself and different bassists and drummers). Until 1953 they made
some important recordings (not only as a sextet: there are also recordings of a
trio with bass and drums, quartet recordings including Konitz, quintet recordings
without Bauer or without a drummer..). In 1951 he found his school (first text).
After dissolving the school he didn't perform in public as much as before. He
gave a few concerts at the Half Note, New York (between 1958 to 1965), toured
Europe in 1965 and had his last public performance in the US in 1968. He died in
New York in 1978.
For critics, suggestions, contributions.. contact us
Written by Nikolaus Schweizer and Johannes Becker
Last Updated: Monday , 20. January 1997