Dave Liebman Group, Ottawa, Canada, April 24, 2008

John Kelman

Senior Editor since 2004

With the realization that there will always be more music coming at him than he can keep up with, John wonders why anyone would think that jazz is dead or dying.

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Published: May 13, 2008

“ The relentless power of the second set--leaving the audience quite possibly more worn-out yet paradoxically more energized than the players--will surely stand out as some of the finest improvised music this city has seen. ”

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Dave Liebman Group
Cafe Paradiso
Ottawa, Canada
April 24, 2008

Aside from the annual TD Canada Trust Ottawa International Jazz Festival, it's rare that Ottawans get to experience a group that has, for many years, successfully brought together a lifetime's worth of experience into a sound encompassing all that makes jazz what it is in the 21st Century. Local bassist John Geggie brings six shows a years to the city's Fourth Stage—musical high points where artists from near and far are brought together, most often with little to no safety net, for evenings of music that are all about risk, often serendipitous chemistry and occasionally even a little bit of background preparation/rehearsal.

Dave Liebman, who brought his longstanding group to Cafe Paradiso for two sets, shares much with Geggie's philosophy of music created in the moment. But there is a difference. The saxophonist, with a resume longer than a career criminal's rap sheet and including stints working in the 1970s with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, remains most notable for the three groups—Lookout Farm, Quest and, now, the Dave Liebman Group—that have occupied much of his career as a leader, and a lifelong musical partnership with pianist Richie Beriach that's not as active as it once was but remains special in its creation of a very personal musical language. Liebman is one those musicians who, coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, views music as a continuum, in which aspects of free jazz, rock, world music, classicism and much more are all signposts along the way, but are there only to provide musicians capable of exploring and blending them with the broadest possible palette.

But by working with regular groups over the long haul, Liebman's view of always looking for the sound of surprise is bolstered by a deep-rooted chemistry. The result is that his groups have always been capable of taking great risks, have been equally secure in the kind of trust in which everyone knows how to respond and react, push and pull—and, many times—drive the music to completely unexpected places, all in the blink of an eye. Liebman's current group has been together since 1991, following the dissolution of Quest, the ten-year collective that recently reformed for a tour and an album, the outstanding Redemption - Quest Live in Europe (Hatology, 2007).

While pianist Phil Markowitz left in the late 1990s—trimming the quintet to a quartet and opening the group up for exploration of the freer, less harmonically dense territories that have always been one aspect of Liebman's multifaceted approach—and the drum chair changed in 2001, when the powerhouse Marco Marcinko replaced Jamey Haddad—guitarist Vic Juris and bassist Tony Marino have been with the group since inception, and the group's discography—most recently Blues All Ways (OmniTone, 2007), which may be the most irreverent and broad-scoped look at the blues ever recorded—reflects an increasingly expansive outlook, based on trust and comfort, but never complacency or predictability.

The group's two sets were, in many ways, a study in contrast. The first set, while not lacking for a moment the energy and expressionism that have become Liebman trademarks, was open-ended but less raucous, while the relentless power of the second set—leaving the audience quite possibly more worn-out yet paradoxically more energized than the players—will surely stand out as some of the finest improvised music this city has seen.

Still, as Liebman dipped back in his songbook to open with his "A Brite Piece," first performed when he was a member of Elvin Jones' group in the early 1970s, the entire group dove in with the kind of immediate commitment and vibrant energy that require most groups a song or two to warm up to. Liebman—one of a very few who makes soprano his main ax—may be one of today's most significant torchbearers for John Coltrane, but his richer, more open tone on soprano, and his distinctive ability to combine staggering flurries of notes with just the right allotment of space, giving even the most extended solo remarkable weight and an unmistakable sense of purpose, have always marked his playing with reference points for the listener attentive to his complex but rewarding musical storytelling.

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