JazzTimes Magazine

Dave Liebman, Jeff Coffin, Victor Wooten, Chester Thompson, Chris Walters, and James DaSilva pay tribute to #MilesDavis on their album "On the Corner Live! The Music of Miles Davis."https://t.co/RmsfA4CwSV

— JazzTimes Magazine (@JazzTimes) April 18, 2019

Happy birthday to #DaveLiebman

Happy birthday to Dave Liebman, who turns 70 today. In this excerpt from his memoir, the saxophonist reflects on his time with Miles Davis.

— JazzTimes Magazine (@JazzTimes) September 4, 2016

Modern Art Orchestra & Dave Liebman

Balassi Institute

Thursday, October 2, 2014 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT)

New York, NY

Jazz greats Dave Liebman and Kornel Fekete-Kovacs, bandleader for big band extraordinaire Modern Art Orchestra (Hungary), reunite at Symphony Space for an adventurous musical encounter, taking the audience on a voyage from Bartok to the heartland of contemporary jazz.


During the past decade, Modern Art Orchestra has gained the status of an internationally renowned chamber orchestra that is engaged in many genres, but most noted for its fusion of big band orchestration with contemporary jazz and contemporary classical music. It has had countless successful projects together with the world’s leading musicians from Ennio Morricone, Bob Mintzer, Dave Liebman, Kurt Elling or Wallace Roney through Rhoda Scott, Julian Joseph, Mike Garson or Silje Neergard to Mezzoforte, New York Voices or Harlem Gospel Choir, and boast of over 15 hours of music composed for MAO, including pieces by Péter Eötvös.

After their tour on the West Coast, Modern Art Orchestra will perform in New York City along with Dave Liebman. Liebman is considered a renaissance man in contemporary music. He has played with many of the masters and among others was awarded with NEA Jazz Masters and JEN Legends of Jazz.

read more: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/modern-art-orchestra-dave-liebman-tickets-13030900775?utm_campaign=new_eventv2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eb_email&utm_term=eventurl_text

Dave Liebman/Michael Stephans ....

Since he began to seriously pursue a career as a jazz artist back in the 1960s, Dave Liebman has been on a transformative journey towards becoming a true original in the genre. After assuming sideman slots with the likes of Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, and Chick Corea, to name but a few, he has certainly earned his stripes. Those who’ve followed him more closely understand that he has become a deep and soulful storyteller in jazz in a way few others have.

So what would you say to a trailblazer like Liebman when you discover he’s taken a batch of beloved pop songs-sweet, memorable, hummable “chestnuts” in the popular lexicon-and completely deconstructed it?

Liebman has, over the years, proved to be a risk-taker, a challenger, someone who purposely defies convention in a way that every iconoclast, especially musical ones, dare to every chance they get. After such an illustrious career, it’s evident that Liebman has earned the right to cherry pick his projects and challenges. Lineage, his project with drummer Michael Stephans, is just that kind of project.

Billed as “rock and pop classics revisited,” Lineage is actually a project long in coming. Liebman and Stephans talked about the idea a few years ago and started compiling a wish list of possible songs. Given the trajectory and complexity of Lieb’s career, they never got the chance to pull it off. Still, like all interesting ideas, it hung around and never really faded out of view.

In 2010, the idea resurfaced. Lieb, with Stephans, guitarist Vic Juris, Bobby Avey on keys, Evan Gregor on bass, and woodwinds guru Matt Vashlishan began working on them the way a baker kneads hunks of dough. The list of potential covers, begun years back by Lieb included several of their favorite songs from the 50s and 60s by artists like Elvis, the Ventures, and, of course, the Beatles. Song titles emerged: “Love Me Tender,” “Wipeout,” “Woodstock,” and “Walk, Don’t Run,” among others.

Read more: http://mixedmediapromo.com/dave-liebmanmichael-stephans/

Dave Liebman: What It Is - The Life of a Jazz Artist

By LEWIS PORTER

[The following is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist (Scarecrow Press, 2012), by saxophonist Dave Liebman, in conversation with Lewis Porter, author of John Coltrane: His Life and Music (University of Michigan Press, 2000). In it, Liebman and Porter discuss the saxophonist's involvement in the loft scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s in New York City, and creation Free Life Communication with a group of like-minded musicians.

This excerpt appears by permission of the publisher, Scarecrow Press. This material is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Please contact the publisher for permission to copy, distribute or reprint.]

Arrival: Becoming an Artist

Lew: This loft was an important thing. How did the loft come about? When did it start?

Dave: In late 1968, after the practice period upstate, I went home to my parent's house to figure out the next period. During my time practicing in Lake Katrine from June to Thanksgiving, I had realized that I wasn't the super talent that some others around me were. I was just starting to understand what talent was, and how that affected what you did. I had al-ready met Steve Grossman, who definitely was what you called talented. I didn't have that kind of natural ear. I did not have that kind of natural talent, but I was a hard worker. I was fairly disciplined and had energy and emotion and expression—these aspects were never a problem. I knew that I had a story to tell. I could compel people to listen to me, but I wasn't that kind of guy who could hear something and play it back at you, which is the heaviest thing you want. I knew that for me to be good, I had to play and play more. There was no shortcut. It was hands on, hours at the wheel, and the only way to do that was to have a loft.

At the same time, I made a musical decision to play no more club dates. If I needed money, I had, after all, the right credentials and credits from college to be a substitute teacher in the public schools, which was a familiar scenario because of my parents. With substitute teaching two days a week, I could swing enough bread to be cool. It paid $35 a day and you were done by three in the afternoon.

I knew about the loft situation through my experiences with Bob Moses, who had introduced me to that whole world before. I knew that was the situation I needed in New York to get good. I knew how you got one—a real process. You got the Village Voice on Wednesday morning at six a.m. at Sheridan Square—direct from the printers. Then you got on the phone, ready to go immediately to see an advertised loft. You had to beat everyone else.

Lew: You mean you would buy it?

Dave: Exactly. It was called key money, which was basically a payoff. In other words, someone "owned" the loft who had ostensibly put in the fixtures—stove, fridge, toilet, shower, whatever. He might want $2,000 just for you to have the right to go to the landlord to negotiate a rental lease. I mean, you still had to pay monthly rent, and a sizable deposit for security. It's hard to explain, but in a way you were paying them, or someone before, who had put money into the building to make it liveable. Now, we are talking very basic in some cases, although when lofts be-came fashionable in the seventies and eighties, they could be like palaces. So, if you wanted it, you paid what the guy asked or whatever you could negotiate.

Lew: And it had nothing in it?

Dave: Well, maybe a toilet, but these were former industrial spaces, of-ten for the fashion trade which was centered in New York City during this time, especially in the Chelsea area on the West Side.

Lew: This is before SoHo lofts?

Dave: Before SoHo. That came a little bit later, and they were generally bigger and fancier—much more expensive than what I could ever afford. This area I'm talking about consisted of former industrial spaces with heavy machinery and the like. In one of my later lofts, above me was the constant thumping of clothing presses or whatever, but it all stopped at five p.m. and on weekends and holidays. Chunk, chunk, chunk, but at five o'clock, done!

Lew: Who lived in lofts?

Dave: Painters, photographers and musicians. Painters needed room for canvases. Photographers needed light. A lot of these lofts had big windows with a lot of light—floor-to-ceiling windows, twelve-foot ceilings. Musicians needed a place to play where they wouldn't have trouble with neighbors. With these places deserted at night, holidays, and weekends, you were cool. Nobody cared. It also fit the musician lifestyle, which was hanging all night and sleeping during the day, though depending on the situation, it could be rough with the factory noise. Often I didn't get up until two in the afternoon, after having gone to bed at six in the morning.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=42354

The Dave Liebman Group - Turnaround: The Music of Ornette Coleman

Veteran saxophonist and flute player Dave Liebman is most well known for his interpretations of the music of John Coltrane and his former employer Miles Davis. This album covers the music of free jazz saxophone pioneer Ornette Coleman, and Liebman and his group with Vic Juris on guitar, Tony Marino on bass and Marko Marcinko on drums and percussion take a fresh approach to Coleman's music, one that is quite successful.

Most of the songs on this collection come from Coleman's tenure with Atlantic Records during the late 50's and early 60's and "Enfant" and "Turnaround" set the stage with agile playing on the knotty themes Coleman was famous for. "Kathelin Grey" begins with delicate acoustic guitar and evolves into a beautiful and melodic ballad featuring a lot of open space. Liebman moves to soprano saxophone for "Bird Food" meshing his swirling sax with swinging guitar, then giving way to a rumbling fast drum solo.

Coleman's famous composition "Lonely Woman" is a highlight of this set, as it is completely re-imagined featuring spare and spacey flute and electric guitar giving the music the feeling of a shamanistic ritual.

Complete on  >>  http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com/2010/12/dave-liebman-group-turnaround-music-of.html


Jazz artist David Liebman plays Autumn Leaves with 13-year-old Gadi Lehavi. Filmed live in a jam session, January 2010.

Dave Liebman - Richie Beirach - Ron McClure - Jeff Williams....

Lookout Farm 35th Anniversary

Wednesday-Saturday, February 17-20 @ 8:30 & 11pm

Birdland Jazz Club - 315 West 44th Street btw 8 & 9th avs - New York, NY 10036-5402

 The 1974 septet release entitled Lookout Farm distinguished saxophonist Dave Liebman as a rising bandleader and top-notch improviser. Along with Liebman, the collective featured Richie Beirach on piano, John Abercrombie on guitar, East Indian percussionists Badal Roy and Armen Halburian, drummer Jeff Williams, and upright bassist Frank Tusa. With this all-star lineup and the production values of ECM’s award-winning Manfred Eicher, Lookout Farm gained iconic status in modern jazz as it pushed the limits of how far a group could go artistically while still maintaining a definitive identity. For this special four-day run, Liebman reunites with original members Beirach and Williams, along with later member, bassist Ron McClure to mark the 35th anniversary of this one of a kind ensemble and recording..