Lennie Tristano

He was born with weak eyesight, possibly as a Consequence of his mother being affected by the 1918–19 flu pandemic during pregnancy.

A bout of measles when aged six may have exacerbated his condition, and by the age of nine or ten he was totally blind as a result of glaucoma.

Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation.

Tristano was born in Chicago on March 19, 1919.

His mother, Rose Tristano (née Malano), was also born in Chicago.

His father, Michael Joseph Tristano, was born in Italy and moved to the United States as a child.

Lennie was the second of four brothers.

Lennie started on the family's player piano at the age of two or three.

He had classical piano lessons when he was eight, but indicated later that they had hindered, rather than helped, his development.

He initially went to standard state schools, but attended the Illinois School for the Blind in Jacksonville for a decade from around 1928.

During his school days he played several instruments, including saxophones, trumpet, guitar, and drums.

At the age of eleven he had his first gigs, playing clarinet in a brothel.

Tristano studied for a bachelor's degree in music in performance at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago from 1938 until 1941, and stayed for another two years for further studies, although he left before completing his master's degree.

One of his aunts assisted Tristano by taking notes for him at university.

Tristano started teaching music, especially improvisation, in the early 1940s, and by the mid-1950s was concentrating on teaching in preference to performing.

He taught in a structured and disciplined manner, which was unusual in jazz education when he began.

His educational role over three decades meant that he exerted an influence on jazz through his students, including saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh.

Musicians and critics vary in their appraisal of Tristano as a musician.

Some describe his playing as cold and suggest that his innovations had little impact; others state that he was a bridge between bebop and later, freer forms of jazz, and assert that he is less appreciated than he should be because commentators found him hard to categorize and because he chose not to commercialize.

In the early 1940s Tristano played tenor saxophone and piano for a variety of engagements, including in a rumba band.

He began giving private music lessons at around the same time, including to saxophonist Lee Konitz.

From 1943 Tristano also taught at the Axel Christensen School of Popular Music.

He first received press coverage for his piano playing in early 1944, appearing in Metronome's summary of music in Chicago from that year, and then in Down Beat from 1945.

He recorded with some musicians from Woody Herman's band in 1945; Tristano's playing on these tracks "is characterized by his extended harmonies, fast single-line runs, and block chords."

He also recorded solo piano pieces in the same year.

Tristano also married in 1945; his wife was Judy Moore, a musician who sang to his piano accompaniment in Chicago in the mid-1940s.

Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1946.

He played with leading bebop musicians and formed his own small bands, which soon displayed some of his early interests – contrapuntal interaction of instruments, harmonic flexibility, and rhythmic complexity.

Tristano's interest in jazz inspired a move to New York City in 1946.

As a preliminary step to moving there, he stayed in Freeport, Long Island, where he played in a restaurant with Arnold Fishkind (bass) and Billy Bauer (guitar).

This trio, with an assortment of bassists replacing Fishkind, was recorded in 1946–47.

Reviewers at the time commented on the originality of the piano–guitar counterpoint and the trio's approach to harmony.

Gunther Schuller later described one of their recordings as "too far ahead of its time" in its harmonic freedom and rhythmic complexity.

Tristano met saxophonist Charlie Parker in 1947.

They played together in bands that included bebop musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach later that year for radio broadcasts.

The pianist reported that Parker enjoyed his playing, in part because it was different from what Parker was accustomed to and did not copy the saxophonist's style.

In 1948 Tristano played less often in clubs, and added Konitz and a drummer to his regular band, making it into a quintet.

His quintet in 1949 recorded the first free group improvisations.

Tristano's innovations continued in 1951, with the first overdubbed, improvised jazz recordings, and two years later, when he recorded an atonal improvised solo piano piece that was based on the development of motifs rather than on harmonies.

He developed further via polyrhythms and chromaticism into the 1960s, but was infrequently recorded.