With Sept Variations sur Lennie Tristano pianists Stephan Oliva and François Raulin have fashioned the unlikeliest of tributes to one of the most enigmatic figures in jazz. Tristano’s compositions resemble Charlie Parker’s lines in that they do not function as thematic cells to be developed via improvisation (as in the case of Monk’s compositions) but might rather be thought of as spectacular codifications of Tristano’s style of improvisation. This impression is reinforced by other characteristics: their use of the abstracted chord-sequences of familiar standards (rather than original changes), and Tristano’s avoidance of melodic repetition: over an AABA chord structure he will nonetheless write a throughcomposed melody (ABCD). Tristano’s style – whether encoded in his compositions or exemplified by his improvisation – is notable for its allergy to ornamentation: triplet figures and chromatic sideslips which for other players would be mere gesture or transitional filler are incorporated by Tristano into his lines with an exaggerated deliberation. The effect is of information overload, given the extraordinary, sometimes almost superhuman length of line Tristano favoured (on occasion running without a break for an entire chorus). His procedures have the uncanny effect of erasing barline divisions; when he pushes them to their logical extreme (as in parts of his great solo-piano LP The New Tristano) the sense of a recurring 4/4 beat is completely effaced. To the uninitiated, Tristano’s music can seem offputting both for its avoidance of conventional swing (The New Tristano is strangely comparable to the solo work of Thelonious Monk – a player Tristano disliked – in its avoidance of “swing” in the ordinary sense of the word), and for its peculiarly monochrome soundworld – its mercilessly high-intensity single-note lines and the granitic weight of Tristano’s chords.

Oliva and Raulin’s unusual use of the two-piano format was presumably suggested by Tristano’s pioneering use of overdubs on side one of his self-titled 1955 LP for Atlantic. Such a doubling-up of instruments is followed through in the constitution of the rest of the ensemble, which features a pair of horns (clarinet and saxophone) and, on several tracks, twinned basses. The odd man out is Marc Ducret, who contributes decidedly un-Baueresque guitar, often heavily distorted. This septet has a vastly greater colouristic range than Tristano himself favoured, and (as the title of the disc indicates) the emphasis on the CD is on elaborate arrangements which pull Tristano’s lines apart and reassemble them according to an entirely different logic. Tristano’s already disorienting lines are sliced up almost arbitrarily into streams of notes and prolonged silences, and the already attenuated links to the underlying chord sequences of standards are in many cases severed. Often the structural split in the composition of this double-trio is exploited to underline this sense of disconnection: on “April,” for instance, piano and bass play a gentle waltz, while alto, clarinet and a second piano state the melody in tinkling, isolated fragments. The brief “Turkish Mambo/Lennie’s Pennies” is no more or less than what the title promises: “Turkish Mambo,” Tristano’s experiment with overdubbing interlocking rhythmic layers, is recreated faithfully by the pianists, with Chevillon’s bass somehow making the whole contraption swing; “Lennie’s Pennies” drifts in halfway through, stated by piano and horns. The effect is of Zappaesque “xenochronicity”; Zappa did this through overdubs, but here the effect seems to be achieved live in the studio (in which case it’s a pretty impressive feat of collective juggling). Occasionally the revisions of tunes are subtler – “317 East 32nd” starts off quite faithful to the original before gradually floating away in Paul Bleyish polytonality – but many are quite radical: Lee Konitz’s “Tautology” is brutally broken open by scorching electric guitar and hammer-blow piano accompaniment.

This is an admirably imaginative album, and it is gratifyingly far from being an example of that stultifying genre, the tribute album. Yet in the end I find it more interesting than satisfying: highly organized and carefully arranged, it can’t help but feel overcooked, lacking the kind of heft and substance that would make it seem more than an intriguing one-off. Nonetheless, it’s an accomplished disc, which requires a certain amount of work from the listener but definitely repays it.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, July 2003