"Liebman is one of the most important saxophonists in contemporary music...a leader and artist of integrity and independent direction." - Downbeat Magazine

Dave Liebman © Dennis C. Owsley

One of the most celebrated saxophonists of his generation, David Liebman has been described as a “Renaissance Man” –a multi-talented musician, writer, educator, producer, and scholar who seems to be as comfortable blowing post bop phrases as interpreting a Brahms sonata. His recent explorations of piano/sax duets as well as forays into classical repertoire come together in his latest Zoho recording, Vienna Dialogues, featuring Bobby Avey, a prodigious pianist nearly 40 years his junior. These duets, covering 8 tracks of mostly Romantic and Classical lieder, will be celebrated on December 2^nd at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan.

Brooklyn native David Liebman, like many of his contemporaries, first studied classical music, with piano lessons at age nine and saxophone at age 12. Jazz intervened, however, when he heard John Coltrane at Birdland, the Vanguard, and Half Note, and he pursued jazz studied through high school and beyond while earning a degree in American History from NYU. Early mentors included Lenny Tristano and Charles Lloyd. Active in the New York loft scene of the early 1970s, Liebman played sax and flute with Elvin Jones before joining the electric Miles Davis group during 1973-74. Over the next decade, Liebman worked with his own groups featuring Richie Bierach and later John Scofield, toured with Chick Corea, and continued exploring a wide range of music from mainstream jazz to fusion, from Coltrane to Puccini. A frequent Grammy nominee and winner or runner-up in Down Beat polls for soprano sax, Liebman has appeared on over 300 recordings, has penned over 200 recorded compositions, and has contributed extensively to jazz education through writing, clinics, and teaching, as well as founding the International Association of Schools of Jazz. In recent years Liebman has recorded in piano/sax duet format, small chamber ensembles, and big bands.

Bobby Avey

Young Bobby Avey grew up in the Pocono Mountains region where Liebman has lived for twenty years. A true child prodigy, Avey was recognized for his outstanding talents as a high school senior with a COTA Cats Scholarship at the 2003 Delaware Gap Jazz and Arts Festival. He recently completed a degree in jazz studies at the State University of New York at Purchase.

Vienna Dialogues is not much of a reach for Liebman when you consider his eclectic history. He’s certainly no stranger to the jazz sax/piano duo, having recorded in this format with Richie Beirach (e.g., 1989’s Chant) and recently on Zoho with Phil Markowitz (2005’s Manhattan Dialogues); and his explorations of classical repertoire include the 2001 recording, Liebman Plays Puccini (Arkadia). Liebman traces his inspiration for the new release to an invited appearance with the Koehne String Quartet in Vienna in 2005, and their performance of an original composition of Thomas Pernes based on Schubert lieder. Finding the composition “very tonal” and easily interpreted by his soprano sax, Liebman notes that “it was a musical high moment of my past few years. And it motivated me to pursue original art songs from the Classical and Romantic era.”

Looking for a young musician to research the music, he quickly connected with Bobby Avey, who took responsibility for most of the arrangements. Notes Liebman, “… deducing chord changes from the piano accompaniment is something that needs to be done for improvisation purposes…Accuracy of pitch is of course crucial but more important from the aesthetic side, the challenge is to convey an emotional attitude culled from the written music while infusing it with one’s own personal set of inflections, guided above all by good taste. The balance between too little and too much is very precarious.” The selected repertoire is “the foundation of modern popular song, a style that grew in America in the 20^th century and to which jazz owes such a debt.”

Thus, melody and harmony in the great European Classical/Romantic traditions form the core of Vienna Dialogues, yet jazz rhythms and explorations play varying roles throughout. The recording may be more attractive to fans of Brahms, Schubert, Handel and Mahler than to those seeking the forms and passions of Coltrane or Rollins, or indeed, vintage Liebman, although there are certainly such moments. Anyone who is readily engaged by beautiful songs with harmonic variations will find plenty to enjoy.

The first track, Robert Schumann’s “Romance”, Opus 94 (no.2) introduces Bobby Avey, who is clearly a fine classical pianist with a clean touch. Composed in 1849, it’s a relatively simple, majestic melody to which Liebman adds a bit of a lilting rhythm while leaving the form intact. The two musicians do some trading off but the embellishments are limited to some thrust in rhythm and a spritely variation on the main theme. Chopin’s “Etude in E-Flat Minor,” Opus 10 (no.6) is a slow, melancholy piece initiated by piano, but here Liebman comes in with echoes of Charles Lloyd in his high, almost piercing wails that create some dissonant yet lovely harmonics. Liebman traverses the soprano, climbing into some guttural highs—conjuring a meeting between Coltrane and Chopin.

On Mendelssohn’s “May Breezes” from Songs Without Words, Avey’s classical lines generate a straight reading, while again it is Liebman who counters with whining, trilling pathos and fluttering phrases over the steady chords of the piano. Late into the piece the sax forms more classical shapes, more singable lines. Unlike their beginning, Avey and Liebman end in the same neighborhood. Brahms’ “Immer Leiser Vird Mein Schlummer” was originally written for voice and piano. The duo presents a rather adventurous introduction, their dissonance creating lovely harmonies and tension. Avey’s crystalline right-hand lines fall over a repeating, vamplike bassline. Liebman sounds more like a post bop explorer than a great Romantic, while Avey’s comping is more firmly 19^th century. But as the track moves along, Liebman speaks in a more subtle companion voice rather than divergent improvisation, creating variations in intensity and degree of embellishment without straying far from the original structure. The earliest composition on the recording, Handel’s Sonata No.6 was written in the early 18^th century, and here is the shortest track at about 3 ½ minutes. Liebman takes the first run through the theme over Avey’s staid bass chords. After a more contemporary introduction, the duo slips back into Handel’s era with a very dark reading, with Avey taking the bottom while Liebman stays on top.

Combining Schubert’s “Tranenregen” (Die Schone Mullerin, D 795) and “Wasserfult” (Winterreise, D 911), the duo brings together more jazz elements. Following Avey’s introduction, Liebman adds very slight syncopation to the first verse. Avey takes the first real improvised section, adding small somersaults around the melody, Liebman answering with a bit of swing before both retreat from invention into more subtle variations as they return to the opening theme, evoling into Wasserfult. Here, a more boppish undertow from Avey supports Liebman’s run through the second theme, and the saxophonist finds plenty of room to twist and turn, briefly taking brief respite in the 19^th century before pushing Schubert again into the time machine. Many great jazz pianists cite Debussy as a critical influence (e.g., Bill Evans), and on “Fleur des bles,” Avey makes it easy to hear the connection between the lyricism of late 19^th century impressionists and contemporary lyricists. Leibman’s soprano sings with hints of modernism before Avey takes off on an elegant journey reminiscent of some of the abstract solo works of Fred Hersch and Joey Calderazzo. Leibman’s second round echoes these songful journeys.

The set closes with the most recent (early 1900s) and longest composition, Mahler’s “Der Einsame im Herbst” from his famous Das Lied von der Erde—Song of the Earth. This rendition showcases the stark beauty of the piano/soprano sax duet and again is somewhat reminiscent of Charles Lloyd’s duets with Billy Higgins (Which Way Is East) with its melancholy themes that suggest Middle Eastern traditional music as much as the late Romantics.

Discographers and critics may argue how to classify Vienna Dialogues. Audiences, however, of both classical and jazz preferences, should simply listen and let this glorious partnership render all debates moot.

The Jazz Gallery is located at 290 Hudson Street (between Spring and Dominick)in the Soho section of Manhattan; www.jazzgallery.org. Dave Liebman and Bobby Avey perform at 9 and 10:30 pm on Saturday night, December 2^nd.