The albums ends as intensely as it began, with a live take of You and the Night and the Music recorded at the Deer Head Inn. Here’s the quartet taking the tune for a faster and splashier spin at their home base, the Deer Head Inn in Pennsylvania, in which Liebman throws in the same West Side Story quote that appears on the studio track before he heads for the stars: On this loping swinger, Test jaunts through the harmonies, melding classic and more modern jazz language before Liebman’s own swaggering effort. The quartet downshifts on Bye Bye Blackbird, with Test reprising the Red Garland intro from Miles Davis’s timeless version before Liebman toys with the melody in his own way. The urgent, hard-rocking track is so good it’s at times even a little bit frightening. After a few bars, Test discards Hancock’s 1965 voicings for his own heady harmonic swirls and Liebman pilots the tune onto his own tension-filled turf. Invitation teems with go-for-it spirit, especially thanks to the maximalist playing of Froman and Test, who enjoy a tight connection as they tumble over barlines and ratchet up the intensity.ĭuring the album’s superheated opener Maiden Voyage, the quartet takes that Herbie Hancock piece to places its composer never dreamt of. With drummer and Ottawa native Ian Froman, a one-time Elvin Jones student, and the younger jazz stalwarts Billy Test on piano and bassist Evan Gregor, Liebman, sticking mostly to soprano saxophone, tears through a selection of jazz standards that have been tweaked slightly, often for maximum thrashing. Liebman led an equally impressive but quite different multi-generational group on last year’s release Invitation. Peace On Earth and Dear Lord are floating, devotional tracks that give this album points of rest between more cresting moments.
Compassion benefits from Avey’s gritty keyboard and Vashlishan’s wind synthesizer. On the folkloric take of Ole, Liebman switches to wooden flute, while Ritz’s plays frame drum, Avey plays a trippy keyboard and Vashlishan plays clarinet. Other tracks grow more expansive, as per the band’s name, through some shifting instrumentation. While Coltrane’s ever-striving music was the foundation for Liebman’s artistry, and while his early stints with Jones, Coltrane’s drummer, and Miles Davis were formative, Liebman forged his own approach and language, which he shared in his 1991 book A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Melody and Harmony. Throughout his five decades at the forefront of jazz saxophone, Liebman has impressed legions of listeners with playing that’s as ferocious as it is articulate. During those years, Liebman’s staunchest harmonic partner was the late guitarist Vic Juris, and the quartet that Liebman led with Juris in it played gigs for the ages at Cafe Paradiso (may that Bank Street jazz venue rest in peace) in 20. The 1990s and 2000s saw an album of ballads and tributes to not just John Coltrane, who changed Liebman’s life when the latter saw the former perform at Birdland in 1962, but also Jobim and Puccini. Liebman’s discography as a leader is roughly 40 albums long, including a slew of diverse albums stretching into the present day. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The Quest albums are special to me, as I saw the band at a Toronto gig in the early 1980s that was revelatory. There’s a through-line from those albums to Liebman’s momentous recordings in the 1980s with Quest, an all-star quartet that included pianist Richie Beirach, Lieb’s right-hand man, bassist Ron McClure and drummer Billy Hart. These were among my earliest jazz discoveries when I was in high school, soon after Pendulum was released. Or, you could check out Liebman’s early albums as a leader, such as 1974’s Lookout Farm, or 1979’s Pendulum. You could go back to that seminal 1973 album by drum god Elvin Jones called Live at the Lighthouse, which featured Liebman, then in his mid-20s, and fellow reedman Steve Grossman, then in his early 20s, roaring like the leading post-Coltrane saxophonists they were. What better reason could there be to set aside some time to savour some of the stellar music that he’s made? Saxophonist and jazz legend David Liebman’s 75th birthday is this weekend. Quint5t (Inner Voice Jazz) David Liebman, Randy Brecker, Marc Copland, Drew Gress, Joey Baron National Capital Region's Top Employersįrom Where We Came (Steeplechase) Michael Feinberg.
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