Reviews for Further Conversations

From Free Press
By Mark Stryker

The current Dave Liebman Group has been together since 2000, but some of the players have been with the restlessly creative tenor and soprano saxophonist since the early '90s. The benefit of such extensive shared bandstand experience is all over "Further Conversations -- Live" (****, True Azul), recorded at a Pennsylvania arts festival in 2007. Liebman, guitarist Vic Juris, bassist Tony Marino and drummer Marko Marcinko attack a diverse book of originals with a focused intensity, telepathy and casual authority you don't hear much in an era when so many bands are manufactured for the festival circuit or studio.

Liebman's post-Coltrane aesthetic marries aggressive improvisational journeys with a pliant eclecticism that takes in odd meters, ethnic rhythms, funk and fusion, paint-a-landscape ballads, dense harmony and free jazz. "Shorty George," "Victim" and "Anubis" have a suite-like quality as elastic forms morph between contrasting sections, ideas and textures. Even in reflective moments, however, there's latent combustion. When the dark sonorities of Liebman's tenor or the cantorial wail of his soprano reach fever pitch, the music pulsates with catharsis.

(Available as download only on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody and other digital sources.)

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