"Intuition" is the title of a
free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in it ...
by the
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation.
Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New Yo ...
quintet. It was recorded on May 16, 1949, and is credited as being one of the first two freely improvised jazz recordings, along with "Digression" (made at the same session).
Background
Pianist
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation.
Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New Yo ...
recalled that, "When I was seven we got a phonograph. I would listen to the old jazz records and then just sit at the piano and play anything – no particular tune."
The quintet that recorded "Intuition" was formed of leader Tristano, tenor saxophonist
Warne Marsh
Warne Marion Marsh (October 26, 1927 – December 18, 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as ...
, alto saxophonist
Lee Konitz
Leon Konitz (October 13, 1927 – April 15, 2020) was an American composer and alto saxophonist.
He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jaz ...
, guitarist
Billy Bauer
Billy Bauer (November 14, 1915 – June 17, 2005) was an American jazz guitarist.
Life
William Henry Bauer was born in New York City. He played ukulele and banjo as a child before switching to guitar. He played with the Jerry Wald band and r ...
, and bassist
Arnold Fishkin
Arnold Fishkind, sometimes credited as Arnold Fishkin (born July 20, 1919 – September 6, 1999,) was an American jazz bassist who appeared on over 100 albums.
Early life
Fishkind was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, and grew up in Freeport, Long ...
. Most of the members of this band had played free improvisations together previously. May 16, 1949 was their third day as a band recording for
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
, and Tristano decided to record some freely improvised playing.
Recording and performance
The sequence in which the musicians would join in the ensemble playing, and the approximate timing of those entrances, were planned, but nothing else – harmony, key, time signature, tempo, melody or rhythm – was prepared or set. Instead, the five musicians were held together by "contrapuntal interaction".
Structure exists in the performance because of "the close interaction between musicians, as they enter in imitation of a figure previously stated by another member." Tristano opens the recording himself, then, at intervals of around 20 seconds, each of the other four musicians joins in. The pianist plays in an implied meter, but adds phrases that provide others. Konitz's entrance reinforces a tonal center of C. Bauer initially responds to a scalar section, and then interacts closely with Tristano. Marsh also starts, at 1:09, by extending an earlier motif, them moves into as the others, except for Fishkin, refrain from playing. The five members then interact together in
counterpoint, before Tristano, at 1:44, plays some fast runs, which leads to further ensemble playing until Tristano repeats an A, signaling the close of the performance.
According to Tristano, "As soon as we began playing, the engineer threw up his hands and left his machine. The A&R man and management thought I was such an idiot that they refused to pay me for the sides and to release them."
Release and reception
According to critic
Barry Ulanov Baruch "Barry" Ulanov (April 10, 1918 – April 30, 2000) was an American writer, perhaps best known as a jazz critic.
Background
Barry Ulanov was born in Manhattan, New York City. He received early instruction on the violin from his father Nathan ...
, four free improvisations were made at the session, but Capitol erased two of them. Tristano stated that the surviving sides were released only after disk jockey
Symphony Sid
Sid Torin (born Sidney Tarnopol, December 14, 1909 – September 14, 1984), known professionally as "Symphony Sid", was a long-time jazz disc jockey in the United States. Many critics have credited him with introducing bebop to a mass audience.
E ...
played copies of them on his radio programs.
"Intuition" was released late in 1950 (on Capitol 7–1224), and was praised by critics. Ulanov described it, together with "Digression", as "the most audacious experiment yet attempted in jazz." Saxophonist
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
and composer
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
were also impressed. Numerous other musicians of the time, however, thought Tristano's music was too progressive and emotionally cold. The piece was included on Tristano's ''
Crosscurrents
''CrossCurrents'' is a quarterly academic journal published by the Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life (before 1990, it was published by the Convergence). Now published as a peer-reviewed academic journalAccording to the journal' ...
'' album.
Influence
The recording influenced bassist
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians an ...
, "whose earliest records sound eerily similar to those of Tristano in terms of style and compositional technique".
The two sides preceded the
free jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians dur ...
recordings of
Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Col ...
by a decade.
References
;Bibliography
*
{{refend
Free improvisation