Personnel includes: Lennie Tristano (piano); Lee Konitz (alto saxophone); Warne Marsh (tenor saxophone); Billy Bauer (guitar).
Recorded live in New York in 1950.
While Charlie Parker was turning the jazz world upside-down with his revolutionary approach to improvisation, a parallel "revolution" was going on, influenced, at least in part, by Parker. Pianist Lennie Tristano adapted elements of 20th-century classical music--music loaded with counterpoint--to a thoughtful yet swinging variation on bebop that would come to be called "cool jazz." WOW consists of music from a Tristano sextet in concert in 1950, and while the recording quality is a little rough at times, the quality and vitality of the music more than makes up for it. The lines of saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh are smooth yet quietly dynamic, intertwining at times like wisps of smoke, and guitarist Billy Bauer had a style that boldly combined Charlie Christian with Charlie Parker. Tristano's music definitely swings, but it does so in a subtle way--the rhythm section doesn't interact with the soloists, but instead provides a foundation for their harmonic flights. WOW is valuable as a live document of an important but neglected figure in jazz history.
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