Lennie Tristano (1919-1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer and influential teacher. Despite being blind from age 10, he became a major figure in cool jazz. His 1949 recordings 'Intuition' and 'Digression' were the first free jazz improvisations, predating Ornette Coleman by a decade. He made the first overdubbed jazz recordings in 1951 and founded the first jazz school in New York.