Ethan Iverson & Lee Konitz - Costumes Are Mandatory (2013)

Lee Konitz, now 85 years young, began his career in the wake of Charlie Parker but after mentoring by Lennie Tristano and recording with Warne Marsh, he became arguably the only saxophonist to offer an alternative to Bird's overwhelming influence at the time. The 1949 recording, Intuition, under Tristano's leadership, found the three men defining 'free jazz' a full decade before the term was coined. It is not surprising then that free-thinking and improvising Konitz would gravitate to the post-modern sensibilities of Ethan Iverson, best known as the pianist in The Bad Plus and a composer of extremely wide range and versatility. Together with Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy they offer a wildly creative set list where past and present combine to teeter on the edge of the future, where new compositions traverse unexplored soundscapes and standards are deconstructed only to be reassembled in a way which challenges preconceived notions of how a tune 'should go.'