Lee Konitz, Prolific And Influential Jazz Saxophonist, Dies At 92
Source: NPR
Lee Konitz, the prolific jazz saxophonist who maintained a singular style and devotion to improvisation throughout a career that stretched more than 70 years, died on Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York at the age of 92. His son, Josh Konitz, confirmed to NPR that the cause was pneumonia related to COVID-19.
Lee Konitz was part of one of the most celebrate recordings in jazz history. In 1949 and 1950, he played with the Miles Davis Nonet a trio of sessions that would that would become Davis' 1957 album Birth of the Cool. Konitz was the last surviving musician who played in those sessions.
But 60 years after those historic recordings were made, Konitz sat in his Upper West Side living room and dismissed Birth of the Cool as merely written music, with incidental solos, having little to do with what he saw as the heart of jazz: improvisation.
"'Improvisary' means 'unforheard' — unforeseen — I don't know what the Latin word for 'heard' is, but it's something like that," Konitz said. "And that's a question that I ask the so-called improvisers: How much of what you're improvising is really pre-planned? The idea that the music is full of surprises."
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835634362/lee-konitz-prolific-and-influential-jazz-saxophonist-has-died-at-92
Another great musician has passed due to COV-19.
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