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Quest: Re-Dial: Live in Hamburg
ByThe often-recorded Beirach composition that named Pendulumrecently collected on the exhilarating Pendulum Live at the Village Vanguard (Mosaic, 2008)makes an appearance on Quest's Re-Dial: Live in Hamburg, recorded at two shows in the fall of 2007, and only goes to show how far the language shared by Liebman, Beirach, bassist Ron McClure and drummer Billy Hart has evolved. Its modal core and recognizable melody are mere starting points for a version far more fluid and free than ever before, as Hart and McClure create constantly shifting, tumultuous waves of color, even as they somehow manage to retain its swinging undercurrent. There may be delineated solosfirst Liebman, followed by Beirach, McClure and Hartbut the level of interaction is so deepwith Beirach pushing and pulling Liebman during his tenor solothat the saxophonist pauses more than once, feeling where the rest of the group is taking him. Everything is less than obvious, and always more than it seems.
Another Beirach tune, the title track to his solo outing Continuum (East Wind, 1983), is a dark-hued tone poem, while his closing "Hermitage," first heard on his duo record with violinist Gregor Huebner, Duality (Niveau, 2007), is amongst Quest's most flat-out beautiful tunes, Liebman's soaring soprano wrapping around Beirach's dense voicings with surprising gentility.
Liebman contributes "Standoff," a brooding cousin to "Continuum" whose moody lyricism sharply contrasts the title track which follows, where the saxophonist's opening soprano solo runs the gamut from oblique post-bop to screeching multiphonics, leading to the gradual emergence of an incendiary pulse that drives one of Beirach's most extreme solos of the set. "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" is a dark-hued tone poem, setting the mood for John Coltrane's "Brazilla," opening with a lengthy drum solo from which a high energy, high density and viscerally charged collective storm emerges, showing just how far the late saxophone giant's vision has come, since his death over forty years ago.
Too late for consideration in 2010's Best Of list, Quest's DNA-level telepathy makes the unfettered fire and sublime beauty of Re-Dial: Live in Hamburg an early contender for 2011.
Track Listing
et Freedom Ring; Standoff; Continuum; Pendulum; The Piper at the Gates of Dawn; Brazilia; Hermitage.
Personnel
Dave Liebman
saxophoneDave Liebman: soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, wooden flute; Richie Beirach: piano; Ron McClure: bass; Billy Hart: drums.
Album information
Title: Re-Dial: Live in Hamburg | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: OutNote Records