Billboard : 03/03/1958

Small group modern jazz of the cohesive, thoughtful brand, most memorable for rare “unit” feeling: flow in ensemble, interplay between the horns. Altoist Konitz, perhaps not as overtly fiery as others on the instrument, has great facility and a surging undercurrent of emotion to his work. Trumpeter Don Ferrara and pianist Sal Mosca turn in noteworthy performances and have individuality in soloing.

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The Gramophone (UK)
Alun Morgan : November, 1958

Lee Konitz, a major disappointment during the “Jazz From Carnegie Hall” concert tour of Britain last September, does much to redeem his position with this LP recorded during August, 1957. Surrounding himself with three other Lennie Tristano students (trumpeter Don Ferrara, pianist Sal Mosca and British bass player Peter Ind) and a good, non-Tristano drummer (Shadow Wilson), he has created an album of flowing, inventive jazz which frequently belies the title Very Cool. Lee’s tone now has less of the piercing, sepulchral quality and there are times (Kary’s Trance, for example) when he descends into a register normally the prerogative of the tenor sax. Apart from a slow, sensitive ballad reading of Crazy She Calls Me, Konitz’s best solo will be found in Sunflower. Harmonically Yesterdays (or as near to Kern’s original chords as makes no difference), this Don Ferrara composition enables Konitz to construct an extemporised line of great strength and logical development. Hearing Lee in this form makes me wish that he would again record with that leading musical architect, Gerry Mulligan.

Ferrara is a much less accomplished soloist, although his work is not without interest; he is sometimes guilty of inserting passing notes, which are not part of the harmony, into his improvisations. In the light of Konitz’s studied attempts to shun the Parker alto style, it is perhaps surprising to find trumpet and alto, in unison, playing Bird’s four-chorus solo from the original recording of Billie’s Bounce. Lee felt that this was “a valid way of expressing my appreciation to Bird”.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : May, 1958

Introduced by Tristano-like ensembles, Konitz moves erratically through these selections. He has moments when he floats lightly and smoothly, but they give way to periods of plodding clichés. With him are Don Ferrara, an outgoing but undeveloped trumpeter, and a rhythm section which is occasionally sparked by Sal Mosca’s piano.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : April, 1958

We think this Cool nonsense has gone far enough. Even Lee’s picture on the cover of this album, looking through a frame of ineffectual ice, looks a bit tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps the fact that the ice is melted where Lee appears is significant.

No one on this album is a shouter. But no one is as really introverted as the term Cool indicates.

Each player has his own voice which he uses effectively. Lee is certainly playing a much warmer and guttier alto that he ever has. Exteriors are deceptive here though, because the way Lee plays is much the same as he’s always played; the difference comes in the things that he plays. Lee’s sound is guttier but not that much guttier; he free-associates, as he always has, but his free-association now leads him into a much more emotional series of phrases. Lee free-associates through a chord, slipping lines and pieces together, but a new dimension of humor has entered his playing. It’s a wryness that works its way through the chord and then enters the next, hooking to the right or the left. It’s not comedy now, no pie in the face, but humor that tempers much of the scattered, self-analysis of his playing.

Don Ferrara makes his formal debut on records, playing on almost all of the tunes, and demonstrating to those who have not yet heard, that he is a trumpet player with a sound and flow of ideas unlike any heard before. Don’s warmth and robustness on this album give the muscle-characteristic back to the instrument. Sal Mosca plays his best piano on record. He takes his time, has a few nervous spots, but plays extremely refreshing piano, both in and out of the Tristano vogue.

In the rhythm section, Peter Ind plays a consistent four-four, while Shadow Wilson plays the currently popular two-four. This difference in feeling disturbs me somewhat. Shadow seems out of character with the rest of the band, but hardly seems to prohibit any one from making what they want.

CODA: Hardly Cool jazz, whatever that is, but crisp, straightforward blowing that has humor, fine swing and an individual voice.

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Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA)
Russ Wilson : 04/06/1958

Lee Konitz, an outstanding alto saxophonist whose work has been somewhat hidden as a result of infrequent appearances, plays with imagination and warmth which is reciprocated by other one-time Lennie Tristano students Don Ferrara, Sal Mosca and Peter Ind, plus Shadow Wilson.

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Toronto Star (Toronto, ON)
Roger Feather : 02/08/1958
Four stars

There is an exciting, yet relaxed, feeling of motion on this LP. The lines, both written and improvised, flow easily, fluently and with much imagination and virility. There is still a strong Tristano influence in this work but it is merged more into the stream of jazz.

Outside of Charlie Parker, Konitz is the only major alto stylist in modern jazz. Over the years his work has mellowed and matured so that instead of the cold dramatic impact he had in the late forties, he now has a sensual grace in his playing. He, and the other men on this album, have a deep concern for time. Lee adds variety to his work by emphasizing rhythmic patterns within his long melodic lines. Mosca’s playing shows this Konitz influence on some excellent time figures in Movin’ Around. Sal also does an excellent job of ‘comping’ behind the soloists.

This is Ferrara’s best recorded work. His intonation is clean and he is lyrical and inventive. Both Don and Lee play wonderfully well on the ballads Stairway To The Stars and Crazy She Calls Me. The rhythm section, particularly Wilson, is forceful and steady.

Ferrara’s Sunflower is an excellent fast-moving tune. The group has a strong, cohesive unity but with enough friction so that their work is fresh and stimulating. It is surprising how little they sound like the accepted alto-trumpet group.

The quintet is relaxed but not “cool” as the title suggests. This is vigorous, emotional jazz and warrants many hearings.

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Down Beat : 03/20/1958
Don Gold : 4 stars

Konitz, one of the few outstanding individualists on any instrument in the contemporary panorama, continues to play with inimitable, lyrical warmth. He is joined here by three other students of Lennie Tristano—Ferrara, Mosca, and Ind—and Wilson, whose experience in jazz is valid, from Lucky Millinder to Earl Hines to Count Basie.

The Tristano discipline is apparent, in the original thematic material and the overall approach, but it is not commandingly so. Ferrara has listened to jazz trumpeters without succumbing to imitation. Mosca, too, is an individualist, having listened to Tristano without having been mesmerized by him. Both Ferrara and Mosca, after studying with Tristano, have gone on to teach. Based on their efforts here, they have much to teach. Ind solos just once (on Bounce), but collaborates with Wilson to set an unintrusive rhythmic pace.

Ferrara’s Sunflower includes a fascinating Mosca solo. On Stars there seems to be some hesitancy about the Konitz-Mosca relationship that mars the effectiveness of the track. Ferrara’s Movin’ features a bright series of exchanges. Konitz’ Trance is typically melodic. The outstanding track is Crazy (naturally), played thoughtfully as a ballad, with penetrating, introspective solos by Konitz and Mosca. In reverence to Bird, Bounce is introduced and concluded by Konitz-Ferrara unison statements of Bird’s choruses. It is significant, however, that the entire piece is not done a la Bird—another sign, however subtle, that Konitz is Konitz.

There are moments here when Konitz hesitates and wavers, but despite these flaws, his performance indicates that he is a major jazz figure, one who deserves greater opportunity and recognition today than he has been receiving.

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Liner Notes by Nat Hentoff

Lee Konitz, born October 13, 1927, is one of the exceedingly few individualists of his generation on his instrument, the alto saxophone, since the enveloping arrival and posthumous continued command of Charlie Parker. Konitz has an immediately identifiable style and sound, a conception marked by absorbing and frequently daring logic, and an increasing story-telling emotional depth. He has also indicated recently that he is capable of developing a significant voice on the tenor saxophone as well.

For this session, Lee chose Don Ferrara, trumpet; Sal Mosca, piano; Peter Ind, bass; and Shadow Wilson, drums. Ferrara, who has recorded with Gerry Mulligan, is also a historian of the jazz trumpet and wrote two illuminating articles on the jazz odyssey of the instrument in the June and July, 1956, Metronome. Don has played with Woody Herman, Georgie Auld, Jerry Wald, and Lennie Tristano with whom he studied for a number of years. He also is a teacher himself.

“Don,” declares Konitz, “is a real improviser when he’s playing as well as he’s able to. He’s a very complete player — sound, ideas, time — and possesses very cohesive intuition.”

Sal Mosca, who studied with Tristano for some eight years and now teaches, is described by Konitz as “one of the most spontaneous piano players I know. I really didn’t think of the piano as that kind of an instrument. It’s hard enough for a horn player to improvise, but pianists usually are even more set in their ways. But Sal is an improviser. He’s also a real pacer — he’s not afraid to sit back and let some time go by. He’s not hung up in the compulsive, forging-ahead kind of way in which many piano players are involved.”

Bassist Peter Ind has worked and studied with Tristano, and has also played with Lee Konitz, Jutta Hipp and others. “For me,” Konitz emphasizes, “he has become one of the great bass players. He has great time and sound and can play extraordinary solos. He has improved a lot, and seems to have submerged some of the ego problems and become able to be part of a group. He projects a marvelous driving force. Peter has the same essence that everybody seems to gather from Lennie — the ability to be spontaneous and individual.”

Shadow Wilson, 38, not a Lennie Tristano student, has played with scores of groups. Among them have been Lucky Millinder, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Illinois Jacquet, and Ella Fitzgerald. “Shadow,” Lee feels, “is in the straight line of group players. He’s a real functional rhythm section player in the Dave Tough tradition. He’s a sensitive drummer, and is sensitive to the sound he gets on his set. And he never oversteps. He’s a group drummer.”

Don Ferrara wrote Sunflower and Movin’ Around. Kary’s Trance, by Lee, is a play on The Kerry Dance, brought to mind by Lee’s youngest child (the youngest of five), Karen, not yet a year old at the time of the composition. Lee chose the two standards for the uncomplicated reason that he likes playing them. On Billie’s Bounce, Lee and Don play Bird’s choruses together and go for themselves on their solos. “Playing his chorus,” Lee added, “was, I felt, a valid way of expressing my appreciation to Bird.”

In talking of this album, Lee also was drawn into a discussion of changes in his own playing in recent years. “Most of all, I’ve tried to get in closer contact with my feelings. I’m aware more of the time of what I’m really doing and of how it feels to me. Now, that may sound cryptic, but years ago, I remember playing with Lennie Tristano in a club. We went off stand at the end of a set, arm-in-arm, and Lennie said: ‘How do you feel?’ ‘So-So,’ I answered. ‘Gee,” Lennie exclaimed, ‘You sounded crazy that set.’ I was disturbed that there could be that distance between how I felt and how I had sounded to him. These days, it’s much closer — how I feel and how I sound.

“The most important thing, I’ve discovered, that I can do is to enjoy myself when I’m playing. I’m not as concerned any more with setting the world on fire with original music. If it comes, it comes: the main thing is to enjoy playing. I don’t care if I’m playing straight melody; I can get satisfaction out of that. I’ve heard some of the young kids go through their paces, and when they land on one note or two notes of a melody, they give it away with the corniest vibrato and sound like a studio man. Playing a melody well isn’t as easy as they think.

“I’m really concerned with playing one good note,” Konitz underlined. “In a number of the young jazzmen, I hear all of the proper ingredients, but I don’t hear one note having the player’s personal feeling. I think, on the other hand, that I’m using my own feeling when I play.”

“Getting back to playing a melody,” Konitz continued, “all of the great players can do that. One of my students brought me a record of Louis Armstrong playing Sleepy Time Down South. Louis gets so deep into every single note. Every note is an expression of feeling. That’s really playing; it’s like pressing the note of the piano into the keyboard.”

Lee went on the subject of repertoire. “I have in mind how a tune should sound to me. If the tune has the ingredients with regard to good melody or good changes, it will be a good enough challenge. If I got to the point where I could play perfectly the tunes I know a number of times, I suppose I’d figure I’d achieved the point and would look for something harder to do. So far, however, I’ve been playing a handful of tunes a number of years and I guess I don’t know them as well as I feel I could. It’s very easy to flit around, but now I’m more concerned with something becoming a part of me, and that takes a long time — 10, 15, 20 years. Take Crazy She Calls Me. I’ve just started to learn it, and figure I have 15 or 20 years to go on that tune.”