With Guest Lee Konitz

This CD has one of the most rewarding of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio shows. Guest Lee Konitz proves to be a very thoughtful and sometimes witty guest. Konitz talks about what he learned from Tristano and in turn what he tries to get across to students himself. He clearly enjoys discussing the magic of improvisation. In addition, the music on this program is uniformly outstanding. For "All the Things You Are" the altoist coaxes McPartland to play freely without a chord structure. He takes "Stella By Starlight" unaccompanied, creates some unpredictable duets with McPartland on familiar yet still fresh standards, plays some abstract piano with the host on "Tactile Talk," and sounds beautiful on soprano during "Little Girl Blue"; upon the latter song's conclusion, Konitz admits that he had never played the song before. This CD ranks up there with the Bill Evans show as the most significant of the Piano Jazz programs thus far released on CD.