1975 · Album
Live At The Montmartre Club - Jazz Exchange Vol. 2
Recorded Late 1975 · Storyville (Dutch) · Venue: Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen
Two Tenors Trading in Copenhagen
Marsh and Konitz circle each other like old rivals who've learned to listen.
Late 1975 at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen: Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz showed up to play together, and what came out was restless, conversational, and occasionally tense in the best way. Both men were saxophonists shaped by cool jazz lineage, but they didn't sound like they were reading from the same sheet. Marsh came in hard and direct; Konitz threaded his lines thin and oblique. The live setting mattered—there's no hiding, no studio cleanup, just two players figuring out in real time whether they could make something work.
What's striking is how little they agree on anything musical. Where Konitz floats over changes, Marsh plants himself and digs in. Their rhythm section holds down the session without calling attention to itself, which is exactly right—these two don't need rescue, they need space to work. The tracks breathe unevenly because that's how improvisation actually moves when neither player is waiting for permission.
This was late in both careers, not a defining moment for either, but it's valuable precisely because it doesn't pretend to be. It's a document of two serious musicians meeting on neutral ground, neither one in command, both willing to be surprised. If you're curious about how jazz sounded when two players with different instincts collided live, this is the thing to hear.
