Dave Liebman & Marc Copland - Bookends

Hatology 587

Charles Mingus was a genius when it came to pithy tune titles, laced with biting wit and lacerating truth. “If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copy Cats” ranks as probably my favorite of the bunch, but Bird’s name can just as easily be replaced with a host of other saxophonists in the postbop populace. In recent times, the mantle of most imitated falls on the sturdy shoulders of John Coltrane. Legions of saxophonist’s have sought Trane’s signatures as their springboards into the music. Many adopted his note-laden solos and penchant for ecstatic verbosity as their blueprints. Dave Liebman was among them, but fortunately, over the years, he’s managed to shirk most of the semblances in his sound and strike out on his own personal path.

Looking back to his early work with Elvin Jones alongside Steve Grossman (another avowed Trane acolyte) he seemed a little lost, a superior technician who had mastered the patterns of speech to the letter, but not the passion of purpose behind them. Over the years his travels took him in some questionable directions. Dalliances with fusion, funk, electronics and Indian music sometimes diluted the focus of his art, but at its core his playing retained an impressive prowess. The Liebman of today seems a musician secure with his past and his present; a veteran who has weathered the tests time threw at him and still sees improvised music as his guiding pursuit and primary source of creative sustenance.

Signing to Hatology several years ago, Liebman immediately received flack from certain segments of the label’s faithful who doubted his right to a slot on the roster. The small handful of releases, thus far in the company of pianist Marc Copland, has hopefully allayed some of those trepidations. Regrettably, the uneven affair that is Bookends is less likely to persuade the dissenters. The set is divides evenly into live and studio discs, each under the estimable engineering auspices of Peter Pfister. On the studio half both players sound a shade too at ease. Liebman’s dry fluttering soprano phrases ripple in soothing confluence with Copland’s bright right hand patterns on the title pieces, but somber hues are the object of study on the saxophonist’s “The Searcher.” Copland’s luminous single note filaments plumb a rich melancholy mood, one that prefaces Liebman’s own ruminations on world-weary tenor. But patches of bright interlace the dark through the lambent rays of Copland’s fluid counterpoint. The pair also tackles a small sampling of standards including Liebman’s nimble tenor reading of “Lester Leaps In” and a breezy cooperative take on Dave Brubeck’s tender ballad “In Your Own Sweet Way.”

Of the two discs the live date has more weight and imbedded pathos. The set list delivers a succinct sampling of postbop compositional acumen beginning with Jimmy Giuffre’s haunting “Cry Want.” Liebman stretches his notes in porous swathes, injecting knotted overblown asides, against Copland’s sparse accents. Together the effect is exquisitely diffuse, but still decidedly striking. The duo’s version of Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” opens from modest modal origins, unfurling into a translucent meeting of soprano and piano that speaks beautifully to the strengths of the minimal instrumentation rather than the faults. Coltrane’s “Impressions” is realized at an even slower pace, the gradual build creating some tension, but with very little of the ebullient joy that suffuses so many of the composer’s renditions. It’s an ambitious experiment, but one that ultimately doesn’t pass muster, despite some lush interplay between the pair. Liebman’s “WTC,” a meandering and maudlin homage to the victims of September 11th, and a too-tranquil rundown of Miles Davis’ “Blue In Green” close the disc out.

Liebman may have long since come out from under the canopy of Trane’s shadow, but his knack for sometimes making suspect choices still seems intact. The playing and the material here are mostly top flight; it’s where the two intersect that often raises an eyebrow and leaves a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. Future projects will hopefully leaven any tendency toward overarching calm with a bit more bite.

~ Derek Taylor