Some photos from the weekend and a stellar review from the NY Times.




What a way to celebrate:
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES,
Saxophonic Celebration, With Much Symbiosis<
By NATE CHINEN
Published: September 15, 2006

The saxophonist David Liebman has all the credentials of a major eminence in modern jazz. In the 1960’s he worshiped at the altar of John Coltrane; in the 1970s he toured with Miles Davis. He has led a handful of fine ensembles through the years, and toiled as a sideman in many others. Among fellow saxophonists and fellow educators, his reputation is ironclad. But perhaps because of the mainstream jazz world’s lingering ambivalence about free jazz and fusion, Mr. Liebman remains something other than a household name. To his credit he has reveled in the freedom of this position: last year he released no fewer than four albums on independent labels. One of them, “Different but the Same” (Hat Hut), provided a compelling starting point for Mr. Liebman’s belated 60th birthday celebration at Birdland this week.
“Different but the Same” documents a quartet inspired by Mr. Liebman’s rapport with a former student, the tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin. Each has a close compatriot in the band: the bassist Tony Marino, who has worked with Mr. Liebman for the past 15 years, and the drummer Jim Black, whose history with Mr. Eskelin stretches back nearly as far.
In its first set on Wednesday night, the group covered a broad swath of post-bop territory. “Tie Those Laces,” by Mr. Liebman, began with a halting theme that suited its composer, then plunged into section of swing in 11/4 meter for a solo by Mr. Eskelin. The two tenors — Mr. Liebman left his soprano at home — presented a subtle kind of contrast. Mr. Liebman was the more fluid technician and the more harmonically adept soloist, but Mr. Eskelin’s playing was appealingly forceful, and his tone had an effective bite.
On a clever exercise that overlaid Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love?” with two songs built on its chord structure, Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House” and Lee Konitz’s “Subconscious-Lee,” the saxophonists engaged in a dual improvisation, reaching a state of deep symbiosis. But it was when Mr. Liebman soloed that the performance peaked; he summoned the locomotion of Coltrane without losing his own steam.
Mr. Eskelin had a comparable showcase on one of his own compositions, “It’s a Samba.” While it wasn’t much of a samba, it did clear a path for Mr. Eskelin’s energetic bluster, and for a virtuoso turn by Mr. Black. He started quietly — coaxing overtones from his cymbals with a violin bow, thrumming his fingers on a high tom like a tabla player — and worked his way up to a fury.
“Ghosts,” the Albert Ayler song that closed the set, sustained a similar intensity. Mr. Black and Mr. Marino threw themselves into a loose-tempo turmoil, as Mr. Liebman ranted and Mr. Eskelin raged. Both tenors attacked the theme with a sense of rigor; each seemed inspired by the other.

THE MASTER SPEAKS:JOE ALLARD
Along with one of my former students, Matt Vashlishan I am preparing a small booklet to be published by Jamey Aeberosold which will be a guide to what to practice daily on the saxophone. In preparation I have been relistening (for the first time in 25 years) to the original tapes of my discussions in the late 1970s with the great guru of saxophone, Joe Allard when we were preparing the text for what became “Developing A Personal Saxophone Sound” (Dorn Publications). Joe taught many of the great jazz players as well as legions of classical guys from all over the world for decades at Julliard, the Manhattan School of Music, the New England Conservatory, his home in New Jersey and at Carnegie Hall Studios in Manhattan where I took lessons as a teenager. These conversations which took place years after I had studied weekly with Joe, were necessary for me to clear up concepts, expressions and so forth in order to be clear and able to accurately portray them on paper. The book is basically an elaboration and organization of Joe’s material.
It is comforting when instructions that were so important at one point of your life, still resonates and endure years later. Listening again to Joe speak about playing the saxophone is like being in class all over-even deeper, more subtle and more correct than it was TO ME twenty five years ago. A master can always be counted on at the right time for inspiration. This is similar to when I tell students that one good judge of a recording is how you will hear it in ten years-will it still be great or lose its luster?

NEW RELEASE:VIENNA DIALOGUES-Zoho Records
Liner notes:Pre-20th century classical music is a musical style that admittedly was not a favorite of mine as I grew musically. I did of course play some of the repertoire as part of early piano lessons. Fortunately, with age comes the ability to appreciate things beyond idiomatic characteristics. On the other hand, to perform and record music from the Romantic and Classical repertoire is another matter.

The chronology of “Vienna Dialogues,” my second ZOHO saxophone / piano duo project, started in 2005 when I was invited to play with the wonderful Koehne String Quartet in Vienna at a very prestigious concert hall. We were doing an original composition by the Austrian classical composer Thomas Pernes which was based on the libretto of Schubert’s famous “Winterreise” song cycle. In preparing, I listened to the original work which is of course a classic in the German “lied” style. Thomas Pernes who usually works in the contemporary vein, wrote a very tonal composition for string quartet and voice which transferred perfectly to the soprano sax. For 45 minutes, I played completely tonal, lyrical melodies with hardly any improvisation, just interpretation. It was a musical high moment of my past few years!! And it motivated me to pursue original “songs” from the Classical and Romantic era.

I thought that this would be the perfect project to do with a young musician who would put the time in, research the music and rehearse. Pianist Bobby Avey has grown up in the Pocono Mountain area where I have lived for the past 20 years. We have quite an active jazz community, with artists like Phil Woods, Urbie Green and Bob Dorough ensconced here for decades. Along with a wonderful educator, Pat Dorian who also plays trumpet in my New York based big band, there is an informal, but real master/apprentice situation happening in our area. Bobby is one of the most talented pianists I have known and as I write these notes, he is finishing up his studies at SUNY Purchase College in New York - in the jazz department where he has excelled.

Though we did choose the material together, it was mostly Bobby’s input on arrangements. For example, deducing chord changes from the piano accompaniment is something that needs to be done for improvisation purposes. Over a one- year period, we rehearsed the music, performed it at Purchase College and with the help of National Public Radio producer George Graham, who has been responsible for the production of high quality music programs for 30 years at WVIA, the NPR station in northeastern PA, we recorded for broadcast.George was incredibly patient and worked with us on the sound, the condition of the piano and of course the editing of the finished CD master. This was a real homegrown Pocono Mountains project, and I am thrilled that Jochen Becker from ZOHO could HEAR the music, once again beyond idiom and association. It is quite different for those familiar with my work, but in some respects it is merely another aspect of the piano-saxophone duet combination that I have been pursuing with a variety of partners for decades, most recently on ZOHO’s “Manhattan Dialogues” with Phil Markowitz.

There are several unique challenges in playing this music. Accuracy of pitch of course is crucial but more important from the aesthetic side, the challenge is to convey an emotional attitude culled from the written music while infusing it with one’s own personal set of inflections, guided above all by good taste. The balance between too little and too much is very precarious. As well, if one considers that possibly the greatest contribution of the Western world to the art of music was the advent of harmony, meaning the choice of the “perfect” harmonic combination which will enrich and deepen the emotional content of a melody, the implications of performing such music run deep. These songs and their predecessors going back to Monteverdi and Palestrina are after all the foundation of the modern popular song, a style that grew in America in the 20th century and to which jazz owes such a debt. As well, the city of Vienna looms large in the history of Western music as a haven for artists and audiences to share the music.

There is a reason this music is called “classical.” It isn’t only a period designation, but on a deeper level, it is that the melodies and chords are “classic.” Everything works like clockwork, making one believe at least for a moment that there is beauty, order and perfection somewhere in the universe. This project therefore gives thanks to the great European musical masters for their major contribution to humanity.

Recorded at WVIA, Pittston, Pennsylvania, in Dec 2005. Recorded, mixed and edited by George Graham. Produced by David Liebman and Bobby Avey
David Liebman-soprano saxophone
Bobby Avey-piano

REPERTOIRE:
1.Romance op. 94 no 2 (Robert Schumann)
2.Etude in E flat minor op.10 no 6 (Frederic Chopin)
3.May Breezes op. 62 no 1 (from “Songs without Words”) (Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy)
4.Immer Leiser wird mein Schlummer op. 105 no 2 (Johannes Brahms)
5. Sonata # 6 (Georg Friedrich Händel)
6. Tränenregen (from “Die Schöne Müllerin, D 795 ) / Wasserflut (from “Winterreise”, D 911) (Franz Schubert)
7. Fleur des Blés (1880) (Claude Debussy)
8. Der Einsame im Herbst (from “Das Lied von der Erde”) (Gustav Mahler)

PASSINGS
THOMAS STOWSAND: When I first recorded as a leader with ECM Records in 1973 (“Lookout Farm”), the company was run by well known producer Manfred Eicher and a man named Thomas Stowsand taking care of the business. By the ‘80s, Thomas had formed “Saudades” to book musicians on European tours. Many of us from the early ECM community, (Jack DeJonette, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, etc.) were his “clients.” In what is a rough business financially speaking, Thomas and his lady, Anna were scrupulously fair to the penny, making someone like myself able to take bands on a consistent level to Europe, which I’m sure by now, readers of “Intervals” realize has been the main place for performing jazz in our era. From 1985 till last year, I had done twenty five tours with Thomas, with several presently in formation. He contracted cancer several years ago at a relatively young age and fought it in the warrior way that he was, was, even recovering enough to drive to some festivals this past season. But, alas..from Anna:

Dear David:
Thanks a lot for the nice words. Thomas stopped breathing at the hospital on Thursday morning where myself, his sister and a good friend were with him until this last moment. With many other friends from Schwaz - we had the last chance to see him on Friday before he'll get burned. Following his wish the urn will be buried in Cuxhaven (northern Germany) on Nov. 3rd. On October 28th we'll do a 'Party for Thomas' at the Eremitage in Schwaz and everybody is welcomed! We miss him a lot and never will forget him. Let's follow up and continue his spirit!!
Love
Anna

To Anna:
There was no more honest, hard working and supportive friend of the musicians than Thomas. He will be missed by the entire jazz community of the world. Sending you our deepest condolences.
David & Caris

MISCELLANEOUS
JOHN (COLTRANE)MEETS STAN(GETZ)
A video is being circulated (You Tube is great in this respect) of Coltrane and Stan Getz playing together in I believe 1961. They play a few tunes with a wonderful rhythm section and decent sound quality, each true to himself 100%. The interesting thing to me is that if I recall correctly, in that period of “Desafinado” and “My Favorite Things” happening around the same time, there was an underlying current of supposed competition, concerning matters of commercialism with racial undertones, which could be summarized as “who is playing the real jazz!!” It is often true that critics like to stir the pot to give them something to write about. But when you see these two guys playing together in such a relaxed, focused and musical atmosphere, all words fall by the wayside and one is struck again by the fact that music is universal, great is great, and that the greatest artists have nothing but respect for their peers.

THE QUESTION OF PRIZES
I have always been opposed to the system of rewards for being the “best” or whatever, meaning competitions, prizes and the like. I vehemently object to this when it comes to young people, but that is another matter. I am totally in favor of recognition of long term contributions to the art form, peer recognition and commendations, but not financial rewards. Music is so personal-how can something be better than something else if it is all good. It is the old apples versus oranges metaphor.
The McArthur “Genius” grant is a significant sum of money while the NEA Masters prize is quite a bit less. I am not going to be naïve and say that I wouldn’t personally accept such the money, but without going into detail, it amazes me (and I am sure at least some others) how such judgments are made as to who gets the gold. Is music really supposed to be like sports with winners and by default, losers?

THE IASJ IN MID LIFE
By now readers should be aware of the organization I founded in 1989 comprised of jazz schools from all over the world. The whole story is very clearly described on my web site. The Chairman of the IASJ, Walter Turkenburg writes an editorial for each of our newsletters which are always insightful and fun to read. The following is the most recent and a wonderful summary of what the IASJ has accomplished in these years:

Minding and mining the facts
In April 2006 I met jazz bass player and educator Ulf Radelius, one of the founders of the IASJ. Ulf has a clear recollection of the first gathering of the IASJ in Germany in April 1989. He knows who was there, who brought his wife, their names and the names of the kids. Ulf Radelius also knows what happened, who said what, what was decided and how it worked out. I was very surprised with his extremely detailed recollection of the history of the IASJ.

Although I have participated in every IASJ Jazz Meeting I am not as good as Ulf in remembering the details. I realized that the entire IASJ is not very good in remembering its past let alone celebrating its success! The figures however are impressive. The Annual IASJ Jazz Meetings have taken place in eleven different counties in the past seventeen years. Although the IASJ is often referred to as a European organization, the country in which most of the meetings have taken place is the USA: three times. Seven European countries follow with two meetings in the past. Statistically speaking, the largest figure is the total amount of participants in the past seventeen years which is about fifteen hundred. That’s not bad. Another relatively big figure is the hundred combos formed at all of the meetings. Not bad either for the relatively small organization the IASJ really is. However, at gatherings of our friends, the IAJE, there are about seven thousand people and at my middle size conservatory I schedule about eighty combos every year.

The true power of the IASJ lays in the quality of the small numbers. Each of the hundred combos that were active at IASJ Jazz Meetings consisted of six to eight players from different nationalities and from all continents. There is, to my knowledge, no other organization in the world that has been able to bring that many jazz combos together with such a high difference in the cultural backgrounds of its players. This tremendous result is to be regarded as a high level of cultural dialogue that is extremely seldom seen in arts education.

This high level of cultural diversity of the utmost importance for the development of jazz as an art form. Students at jazz schools all over the world have an excellent sense for what is the latest thing in jazz and where the real action is taking place. This “what’s happening now” is one of the main issues of their conversations. They try to figure out when and where new things are occurring and if they are able to contribute and experience them. The IASJ Jazz Meetings have become opportunities to participate in such new experiences. A selected student for an IASJ Jazz Meeting will enjoy all the sweet things that come with it such as the trip to another country and the CD that will arrive at his home half a year later with some of his playing on it. All of that is nice but not the most important. The attraction for a participating student is the experience during a full week of being at the forefront of the development of jazz, being in the very centre of where it all is happening!

I give an example to show my point. In the mid nineties about ten years ago at the IASJ Jazz Meetings, the jam sessions bands started to mix all sorts of patterns in the rhythm section. As a result the wildest spectrum of grooves were played. In the mix everything was allowed and anything could happen. In these jam sessions the students did not play the Real Book standards anymore. They jazzed-up tunes from the pop repertoire they grew up with. In the process of jazzing up excerpts from pop idioms, bits and pieces of world music were included as well resulting in some incredible moments of diverse rhythms all coming out at the same time. The “head” or melody section was no longer a safe place. Bebop, Cool Jazz, Free Jazz but also New Orleans style kind of improvisations were mixed in one tune and sometimes even in one solo. Consciously or not, the students took a non-historic approach to jazz improvisation. What happened was the deconstruction of jazz. It was seen as a gimmick at that time, ten years ago. Had our dear and respected excellent students been drinking too much, the teachers were wondering?

This was not the case. Coming from all over the world and jamming at IASJ sessions, these students tested their powers. They were looking for new ways to express themselves by comparing and deciding what worked and what did not. What was seen as fooling around at that time has become a dominant practice in jazz ten years later. Vijay Iyer, Ethan Iverson and Brad Meldau have capitalized on a deconstructive approach by making it their main way of working. By the way, Meldau was a participant of one of the very first IASJ Jazz Meetings and still remembers this very well.

The power of the IASJ is that it serves as the birth place of new developments in jazz and jazz education. Like everything that is born it starts on a small scale. New developments cannot be forced. However, there a good and there are better circumstances that can lead to new directions. I dare say that IASJ Jazz Meetings are surely among the better situations occurring worldwide responsible for generating new ways of thinking and doing in jazz, if not the best!

Walter Turkenburg
Editor

HISTORY LESSON AND MAN’S INGENUITY:JAZZ IN RUSSIA DURING THE COLD WAR:
(From the web)In the years after World War II, Stalin attempted to extirpate every aspect of American culture from Soviet life. Jazz, which had been played publicly in the USSR as recently as the war years, was now officially regarded as decadent capitalist filth; to even speak of jazz during this period was a criminal act.

Jazz survived in the Soviet Union in some astonishing circumstances. As jazz historian S. Frederick Starr has recounted, many of the country's best musicians were actually in Siberian prison camps, but these camps were in many cases ruled by commanders who liked jazz and who organized the musicians to play for their often-lavish parties. Prison camp commanders would even exchange these jazz groups, allowing them to "tour," as it were, camps where countless prisoners were being worked, starved, and frozen to death.

People managed not only to hear jazz, but to assemble collections of recordings too. How? They had turntables, but they certainly couldn't buy jazz records in record stores (there weren't any). They couldn't tape what they heard on the radio. Even assuming they could get access to a reel-to-reel recorder, where were they going to get enough blank tape? The solution was a piece of genius. A jazz-loving medical student realized that he could inscribe sound grooves on the surface of a medium that was actually plentiful in the Soviet Union: old X-ray plates. He rigged a contraption that allowed him to produce "recordings" that, while obviously of low quality, at least contained the precious music and allowed its admirers to listen to it at will. He and his imitators were to make a lot of well-earned money on the black market. This material was both plentiful and cheap, and millions of duplications of Western and Soviet groups were made and distributed by an underground roentgenizdat, or x-ray press, which is akin to the samizdat who nurtured the notorious tradition of self-publication among banned writers in the USSR. According to rock historian Troitsky, the one-sided x-ray disks cost about one to one and a half rubles each on the black market, lasting only a few months, as opposed to around five rubles for a two-sided vinyl disk. By the late 50's, the officials knew about the roentgenizdat and made it illegal in 1958. Officials took action to break up the largest ring in 1959, sending the leaders to prison, and organizing the Komsomol of "music patrols" that later undertook to curtail illegal music activity all over the country.”

AIR TRAVEL:THE SAGA GOES ON!
Warning to Local 802 Members and Friends:
Don't Fly Delta or US Airways/America West

Local 802 and the AFM have received numerous complaints from musicians traveling on various airlines, but by far the most complaints have come against Delta Airlines. They make up their own rules, refuse to allow valuable instruments to travel with the musicians and even when a musician buys an extra ticket for their instrument, they have insisted that it be packed overhead in storage. This boycott is supported by the AFM and it's President Tom Lee. The only way they will listen is if we all stop using Delta. Send us your complaints about other airlines as well, but in the meantime stop flying Delta and US Airways/American West.

"Please circulate. I've had more bad experiences re: my equip with Delta than with all the rest combined. Payback time." (Marc Ribot)
"I have had amazingly bad experiences with US Airways/America West. They actually agreed in writing that they destroyed an instrument but stated 'DUE TO OUR MISHANDLING.... IT IS APPARENT THAT OUR EFFORTS WERE LESS THAN SUCCESSFUL... but are not in a position to offer compensation.' Payback time indeed!!"
(Ray Ippolito)

From the International Herald Tribune:
“EU experts backed new EU rules to limit cabin baggage to a maximum of 56 by 45 by 25 centimeters or 22 by 17 by 10 inches, although exceptions COULD BE MADE for items like musical instruments.” COULD BE MADE-are they kidding?

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
NOVEMBER:
Clinic and performance with Dave Liebman Group at Roberto’s Woodwind Shop, NYC; Four Night Celebration of Coltrane at the Manhattan School of Music: opening lecture;panel moderated by Ira Gitler with Roy Haynes, Rashied Ali, etc., small group performance playing Coltrane repertoire, big band playing Meditations Suite; performance with Dave Friesen in Berlin; appearances in Brussels, Belgium and Guimares Festival, Portugal with the Brussels Big Band; presenting “Vienna Dialogues”-new CD with pianist Bobby Avey at the Deer Head Inn, Deleware Water Gap, PA

DECEMBER:
Presenting “Vienna Dialogues”-new CD with pianist Bobby Avey at the Jazz Gallery, New York City; European tour with pianist Marc Copland

Peace
Lieb