DAVE LIEBMAN
Live at Smalls
SmallsLIVE/Cellar Music
Soprano saxophonist and flutist Dave Liebman’s latest live album is billed as “a new phase for the NEA jazz master, one that is focused on free improvisation.” But if those last two words connote aimlessness or amorphousness to you, Live at Smalls — recorded at the titular West Village basement club in January 2022 — will act as a corrective.
While there is no previously composed music on this set — delineated as “The Beginning,” “The Middle,” and “The End”— Live at Smalls nonetheless hurtles forward with a crystal-clear sense of purpose. Part of this is due to the caliber of Liebman and the musicians augmenting him: incisive trumpeter Peter Evans, versatile pianist Leo Genovese, supple bassist John Hébert, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey — a widely revered maestro with a 360-degree vantage toward his accompanists.
Throughout Live at Smalls, the quintet frequently veers out but remains incredibly listenable — partly as per the stellar recording quality at the club, but mostly due to the pedigree of these globally respected musicians.
Liebman has been in the game for more than half a century. His storied discography stretches back to Miles Davis’ deconstructionist classic On the Corner and beyond; he’s been recording since he was 16. If Live at Smalls is the gateway to this new phase in this jazz lifer’s development, the jazz community is in for a treat. Indeed, far more than a treat: it’s our honor to bear witness.
—MORGAN ENOS
JOSH LAWRENCE
And That Too
Posi-Tone
A striving for “perfect imperfection,” as Josh Lawrence terms it, with a focus on mostly unrehearsed first takes and no edits, was the modus operandi for the recording of And That Too. It’s the trumpeter-composer’s fifth album as a leader and one of two he recorded, along with Call Time, in spring 2021. Lawrence indeed brings a freshness and sense of immediacy to five of his originals and two by tenor saxophonist Willie Morris, a pal from Julliard grad school, along with Wayne Shorter’s “Nefertiti.”
Lawrence, who also has co-led the Fresh Cut Orchestra and played with Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band and a variety of R&B artists, opens strong with the quickly stated theme and bracing forward motion of Morris’s eight-minute-plus “Grit,” the first of several extended showcases for the energetic, inquisitive soloing of the trumpeter and saxophonist. Posi-Tone bass regular Boris Kozlov and drummer Jason Tiemann, sans piano at first, drive the hard-swinging propulsion behind Morris on his “Hole in the Wall,” also another opportunity for Lawrence to demonstrate his chops and knack for taking solos in unexpected directions.
A pretty, relaxed take on the Shorter tune, voiced by muted trumpet, makes a pleasant contrast with the uptempo material. Lawrence’s spritely bop burner “Cosmological Constant,” one of several tracks featuring the informal Posi-Tone house rhythm section of Kozlov, pianist Art Hirahara, and drummer Rudy Royston, gets its kicks from loads of rhythmic pushing and pulling and a stellar Hirahara solo. The leader’s “Black Keys,” composed solely on a piano’s black keys, is built in part on call-and-response among trumpet, sax, and piano. And his “Cantus Firmus,” also featuring muted trumpet, is moody and laidback before it shifts to a hard-driving mode. It makes for a fitting chill-down closer.
—PHILIP BOOTH
DAVE STRYKER TRIO
Prime
Strikezone
“Stryker” is a fine name, that covers classic pop songs from the 1970s. In 2019, he even added a Christmas album to the series. The albums added a prominent vibraphonist (Stefon Harris or Steve Nelson) to Stryker’s working trio (organist Jared Gold, drummer McClenty Hunter). is the first recording by this trio alone, a band that has been road-tested for 12 years.
