Frescalalto

"Not many jazz improvisers manage to remain inquisitive, unpredictable, uncategorisable and entertaining throughout a six-decade career, but the 89-year-old Chicagoan alto saxophonist Lee Konitz is a momentous exception. Konitz's sound was honed in the 1950s cool school, and his sax became the tap from which poured streams of fresh melody on any theme or harmony, or on none. That said, this straight-ahead set is predominantly a vehicle for the fine pianist Kenny Barron's trio, with Konitz leaning in for some characteristically pungent sax propositions and asides, and some quirky scat vocals".

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"Konitz has always sounded like a man searching for the least obvious path through a standard, and here - with long-standing associates pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington - on a set of hoary old chestnuts including Stella by Starlight, Darn that Dream and Out of Nowhere, he steadfastly avoids cliché once more.Frescalalto is the sound of a venerable musical mind - one of the last living links with jazz's classic period - still sharp, still searching, still capable of the sound of surprise".

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