"Alone Together" is the title track from the 1996 live album by Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, and Charlie Haden, recorded at the Birdland club in New York City. The Arthur Schwartz standard, with its AABA form and rich harmonic movement in D minor, provides an ideal vehicle for this intergenerational trio. Konitz, the legendary cool jazz alto saxophonist and student of Lennie Tristano, opens with three choruses that display his signature approach to improvisation: long, flowing lines built from a deep internalization of the harmony, delivered with a cool, penetrating tone. The young Brad Mehldau, then in his mid-twenties and rapidly establishing himself as one of the most important pianists of his generation, follows with three choruses that reveal his gift for combining classical sensitivity with jazz spontaneity. Charlie Haden closes with two choruses of acoustic bass improvisation, his deep, resonant tone and melodic approach to the instrument reflecting decades of experience dating back to his groundbreaking work with Ornette Coleman. The trio format strips away conventional rhythmic support, placing each musician's ideas in sharp relief and demanding a level of interactive listening that all three deliver with remarkable sensitivity. This performance captures a rare meeting of three distinct jazz sensibilities united by a shared commitment to melodic improvisation.
