DAVE LIEBMAN & JOE LOVANO - Compassion: The Music Of John Coltrane
Resonance Records
Dave Liebman (tenor & soprano saxophones); Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone & alto clarinet); Phil Markowitz (piano); Ron McClure bass); Billy Hart (drums)
Recorded 22nd June, 2007
This is a lovely warm conversation of an album – like one of those dinners around a table of friends who all have common ground on which to talk energetically into the night, over half a case of a rather special vintage wine.
The vintage fuelling the love and passion for the conversation is the music of the inestimable John Coltrane, and on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing in 1967, around the table at dinner are the long-established fan-club that includes Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Phil Markowitz, Ron McClure, and Billy Hart. The recordings come from a NYC studio session, originally commissioned ten years ago for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 by ‘Somethin’ Else!’, when the production company still paid dues to its jazz origins.
The musicians had already been developing the band around the material and a common passion for Mr. J.C., and so this recording exudes the relaxed and friendly warmth of a jam session. But this comparison would bely the subtleties of the deeper considerations going on here.
As the extensive booklet of interviews and Ashley Khan’s blessing will illustrate, the background to the music led the group to the point where different periods of J.C.’s music were taken on board, right down to the presence of a sense of acknowledgement of Eric Dolphy’s and Pharoah Sander’s respective contributions to his music being ‘tributed’ too. Indeed, Lovano’s loquacious and rhapsodic style seems more evocative of Charles Lloyd at times, which provokes a question: how do we pay tribute to one of the great artistic forces of music, of any genre, of any period?
‘Locomotion’ is a rumbustificacious rip-roarer, evoking the days of Sax Summit – Liebman and Lovano playing out of their skins, with more than a passing reference to the missing third, the late and very great Michael Brecker, perhaps the most influential post-Coltrane saxophonist, and so sadly not with us today. Phil Markowitz strikingly establishes his credentials as a McCoy Tyner disciple, with Billy Hart so energetically and refreshingly throwing the emphases around all corners of the phrases, every explosion a conduit for his love of Elvin.
‘Central Park West’ is a slightly ghostly and reflective exploration: Lovano telling us he doesn’t actually need to sound like Coltrane, with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Charles Lloyd all evoked. And running into ‘Dear Lord’, he continues to give us his human frailty, rather than the somewhat monolithic, god-like over-statement of many an attempted Coltrane ‘tributer’.
‘Ole’ is a truly playful exposition – bringing to mind the days of Pharoah and Alice – with other contemporary influences to the fore in Markowitz’s consistently creative contributions. The daunting nature of the conclusiveness of Coltrane’s approach in this context perhaps overshadowing Lovano’s approach here, Liebman equips with a fulsome range of soprano ‘sheets of sound’ strategies, fully embracing his role as one of the great post-Coltrane disciples or ‘imitators’ - for Liebman, this word can be used as a compliment.
Dolphy is paid more than a passing nod in ‘Reverend King’ – with Joe on alto clarinet – one of my own well-kept secrets in the instrumental arsenal available to a reedsman! ‘Equinox’ is a business-like and faithful period piece, as befits the ostinato and rhythmic underpinning of this most edible and nutritious of blueses.
‘Compassion’, the title track, is the fully extended journey into the group’s righteously earned capacity for indulgence – featuring Billy Hart’s inspirational and motivating force-of-nature drumming, and Liebman’s strongly derivative tenor excursions, it demonstrates that a studio recording can have atmosphere ….something not so readily evident in a currently over-saturated market of studio-
generated jazz, and in a world where a dinner party can often end in a discordant rant, noise signifying nothing, rather than the convivial celebration and impassioned exchange we find here.
Reviewed by Julian Nicholas
Resonance Records
Dave Liebman (tenor & soprano saxophones); Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone & alto clarinet); Phil Markowitz (piano); Ron McClure bass); Billy Hart (drums)
Recorded 22nd June, 2007
This is a lovely warm conversation of an album – like one of those dinners around a table of friends who all have common ground on which to talk energetically into the night, over half a case of a rather special vintage wine.
The vintage fuelling the love and passion for the conversation is the music of the inestimable John Coltrane, and on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing in 1967, around the table at dinner are the long-established fan-club that includes Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Phil Markowitz, Ron McClure, and Billy Hart. The recordings come from a NYC studio session, originally commissioned ten years ago for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 by ‘Somethin’ Else!’, when the production company still paid dues to its jazz origins.
The musicians had already been developing the band around the material and a common passion for Mr. J.C., and so this recording exudes the relaxed and friendly warmth of a jam session. But this comparison would bely the subtleties of the deeper considerations going on here.
As the extensive booklet of interviews and Ashley Khan’s blessing will illustrate, the background to the music led the group to the point where different periods of J.C.’s music were taken on board, right down to the presence of a sense of acknowledgement of Eric Dolphy’s and Pharoah Sander’s respective contributions to his music being ‘tributed’ too. Indeed, Lovano’s loquacious and rhapsodic style seems more evocative of Charles Lloyd at times, which provokes a question: how do we pay tribute to one of the great artistic forces of music, of any genre, of any period?
‘Locomotion’ is a rumbustificacious rip-roarer, evoking the days of Sax Summit – Liebman and Lovano playing out of their skins, with more than a passing reference to the missing third, the late and very great Michael Brecker, perhaps the most influential post-Coltrane saxophonist, and so sadly not with us today. Phil Markowitz strikingly establishes his credentials as a McCoy Tyner disciple, with Billy Hart so energetically and refreshingly throwing the emphases around all corners of the phrases, every explosion a conduit for his love of Elvin.
‘Central Park West’ is a slightly ghostly and reflective exploration: Lovano telling us he doesn’t actually need to sound like Coltrane, with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Charles Lloyd all evoked. And running into ‘Dear Lord’, he continues to give us his human frailty, rather than the somewhat monolithic, god-like over-statement of many an attempted Coltrane ‘tributer’.
‘Ole’ is a truly playful exposition – bringing to mind the days of Pharoah and Alice – with other contemporary influences to the fore in Markowitz’s consistently creative contributions. The daunting nature of the conclusiveness of Coltrane’s approach in this context perhaps overshadowing Lovano’s approach here, Liebman equips with a fulsome range of soprano ‘sheets of sound’ strategies, fully embracing his role as one of the great post-Coltrane disciples or ‘imitators’ - for Liebman, this word can be used as a compliment.
Dolphy is paid more than a passing nod in ‘Reverend King’ – with Joe on alto clarinet – one of my own well-kept secrets in the instrumental arsenal available to a reedsman! ‘Equinox’ is a business-like and faithful period piece, as befits the ostinato and rhythmic underpinning of this most edible and nutritious of blueses.
‘Compassion’, the title track, is the fully extended journey into the group’s righteously earned capacity for indulgence – featuring Billy Hart’s inspirational and motivating force-of-nature drumming, and Liebman’s strongly derivative tenor excursions, it demonstrates that a studio recording can have atmosphere ….something not so readily evident in a currently over-saturated market of studio-
generated jazz, and in a world where a dinner party can often end in a discordant rant, noise signifying nothing, rather than the convivial celebration and impassioned exchange we find here.
Reviewed by Julian Nicholas
