Reviews for Quest Live in Europe

From Jazz Podium
By Reiner Kobe
Translated by Wolfgang Knittel (Delaware Water Gap, PA, USA)

Since fifteen years, Quest is again reunited. The Quartet around David Liebman and Richie Beirach, friends since their youth, wants it known after a 15-year break that they still know how, as this recently released live recording asserts.

As the record company proudly announces “a totally new view of jazz standards using phenomenal polytonality and until now unknown harmonic ingenuity.” The quartet sustains itself from that until today. When you now hear “Round Midnight” or “Lonely Women” you know what is meant. Coleman’s classic becomes a heartfelt ballad performed on flute by David Liebman in his own characteristic style. And Monk is admittedly interpreted brittle, true to style, but in an entirely new context. Quest’s live recording is a splendid example of how jazz is able to renew itself from the inside. Pianist Richie Beirach operates (acts) above all the stylistics, and the rhythm team of Billy Hart and Ron McClure also knows to cover the scene. Seldom can such a united- acting quartet be heard.
 

By Tom Sekowski

Inactive for fifteen years, Quest comes back with a document of their 2005 European tour. Recorded over two concerts [one in Switzerland and the other one in Paris], "Redemption" sees the quartet go back to their roots and most importantly showcases the live aspect that is so vital to the existence of the ensemble. With David Liebman playing like I've rarely heard him before, his intense concentration is full of rage and fire. The band's take on Coltrane's "Ogunde" sees Liebman stretching out and detonating furious motifs one by one. All the while, pianist Richie Beirach splits his time between intensity and melodic lyricism. Not unlike McCoy Tyner in Coltrane's group, he takes on the role of the central figure which sets the rhythm, while delivering key melodic passages. His pacing is mid tempo, though his persuasive melodies are dead on and more often than not, become central forms in every piece. Rhythm section - Ron McClure on bass and drummer Billy Hart - is persistently vigilant. Listen to the way they keep time and wrap around Liebman's fast-moving soloing on their superb rendition of "Dark Eyes". Better yet, take a listen to the way Billy Hart battles Liebman in a head-to-head on the title track. Mind you, Liebman can get quite lyrical too. When he switches from soprano and tenor and picks up the wooden flute on "Lonely Woman", the result is mesmerizing. His lines sound mystical, almost other worldly. The others mellow out during the number and play low key, allowing Liebman to take the spotlight. The music on the record tends to have a loosely fitting feel. Sure, these pieces are composed but all four members make it sound as if this was just another jam session, without recording devices in sight. Richly rewarding album, one that only gets better with each repeated spin.

 

From Neue Zuricher Zeitung

The first quest album was released in 1981 but the members know each other much longer. After 1991 the group stopped playing but got  together again in 2005 for a European tour. There is nothing nostalgic about this new live recording and the music is complex, infectious and intelligent jazz. Half of the 6 tunes where recorded in Baden, the other half in Paris. The CD starts quiet with a subtle version of “Round Midnight”, a duo of Liebman and Beirach. In “Ogunde and “Dark Eyes” Liebman plays tenor and not his usual soprano, a new thing with Quest. “Lonely Woman” is a reference to Ornette Coleman.  Liebman’s “WTC” and Beirach’s “Steel Prayers” in memory of  9/11 are played as a medley. The highlight of the CD is the 20 minute ecstatic version of Billy Hart’s “Redemption”.

From All About Jazz
By John Kelman

The passage of time has no meaning when it comes to the kind of intimate musical understanding that saxophonist David Liebman and pianist Richie Beirach have shared since first working together in the early ‘70s. They have collaborated on numerous group projects as well as a series of duet recordings that are in dire need of reissue. Perhaps their longest and most enduring group was Quest, a quartet that released half a dozen albums between 1981 and 1990.

Redemption - Quest Live in Europe documents a 2005 reunion, and in many respects it feels as if no time has passed. The chemistry shared with bassist Ron McClure and drummer Billy Hart remains intact, but this is no backwards-looking get-together. Instead, it’s a chance to hear where the past fifteen years have led these musicians, both individually and collectively.

Beirach and Liebman open with a duet take on Monk’s ”’Round Midnight,” beginning in brief abstraction before finding its way to the familiar theme. A feeling of total spontaneity without a safety net pervades Liebman and Beirach’s expansive examination of the tune’s rhythmic, harmonic and thematic possibilities. Still, no matter how far they take it, what defines the tune is never far away.

Liebman and Beirach have always shared deep roots in the music of John Coltrane. Transcending mere reverence, however, Quest makes latter-day Coltrane’s “Ogunde” its own through a more deeply lyrical approach to this tumultuous tone poem. McClure and Hart create a curiously understated maelstrom beneath Beirach’s poignant melodism before leading into a more outgoing and extreme solo from Liebman. McClure’s supple pizzicato support and visceral arco are a continuing reminder of how unfairly overlooked a player he remains.

Liebman’s “WTC” is an abstract exploration into the emotional impact of the September 11 Word Trade Center attack. Dark and foreboding, the chemistry of the quartet gradually builds Liebman’s abstruse yet unequivocal theme to a logical point where Beirach becomes the sole voice, segueing into “Steel Prayers,” Beirach’s mournful yet equally hopeful conclusion.

“Dark Eyes” is Quest at its most swinging, yet there’s still an underlying sense of abandon. McClure is the fluid anchor beneath Leibman’s powerful tenor, with Hart and Beirach pushing and pulling to create an ongoing tension and release. Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” becomes a rubato tone poem, with Liebman’s wooden flute giving the piece an otherworldly feel.

The title track has been in the group’s repertoire since the mid-‘80s, but this twenty-minute version of Hart’s tune is definitive--a potent blend of free interaction, powerful rhythmic interplay and post-Coltrane modality.

It’s uncertain whether or not Quest will continue to work together. Based on Redemption, however, it’s clear that there’s no shortage of inspiration to keep it a viable and vital concern.

From All About Jazz
By David Adler
 

In 2005 Quest did Led Zeppelin one better, reuniting all four original members to play gigs in the US and Europe. Active in the 1980s and into the early 1990s, this super-group was just one project that over the decades involved saxophonist David Liebman and pianist Richie Beirach. Interest in the band was renewed by a set of archival material released by Mosaic in 2004.

Now comes Redemption. Recorded live in Switzerland and France, the album finds Quest playing with undiminished ardor, revisiting older material but also venturing into new areas. Monk’s “‘Round Midnight” is the opener and a sterling example of Liebman and Beirach’s inimitable chemistry (bassist Ron McClure and drummer Billy Hart lay out). In place of the traditional intro, Beirach opts for haunting textures and dense chordal clouds, though he and Liebman spell out the standard coda just before a blazing cadenza on soprano sax.

“Ogunde,” from Coltrane’s later period, finds Liebman switching to tenor, an instrument he’d sworn off during Quest’s initial lifespan. Between this and another tenor feature, the old Russian standard “Dark Eyes,” we hear Quest’s highly personal take on the modernist continuum. Trane’s surging swing and ecstatic holler, Elvin Jones’ slow 3/4 burn, the open rhythmic interplay that Hal Galper has termed “furious rubato”: Quest couches all of this in the dark, polytonal harmonic language that long ago earned Beirach his nickname, “The Code.”

The most surprising twists occur during Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” Liebman renders the theme gorgeously on wooden flute and Hart, toward the end, slips into a kind of hip-hop groove—almost a nod to the Nu Jazz aesthetics that came into being during Quest’s dormancy.

There are fewer originals on Redemption than typical for Quest. The title track, by Hart, is heard in its longest recorded version to date. Liebman’s “WTC,” conjoined with Beirach’s “Steel Prayers,” is a poignant response to the 9/11 attacks, evolving from abstract tenor musings into soprano balladry, set in an uncharacteristic major key

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