In 1930, an 11-year-old blind clarinetist played in a Chicago brothel; he would go on to record the first free group improvisation in jazz and the first improvised overdubbed recordings. This episode traces Lennie Tristano from the loss of his sight to glaucoma, a music degree earned with his aunt taking notes in his lectures, and his 1946 move to New York, where his advanced harmonies challenged Charlie Parker as an equal.

We break down the 1949 sextet session with Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh that produced Intuition and Digression with no melody, tempo, or key; the loft studio experiments in multi-tracking, tape-speed manipulation, and an atonal piece inspired by Edgar Allan Poe; the purist backlash that called it cheating; and his shift to rigorous teaching. We close with his disdain for 1960s free jazz, the Half Note residency, and his de ...