Reviews for Vienna Dialogues

From All Music Guide
By Ken Dryden


Although classical musicians have essentially lost their once strong spirit of improvisation, a number of jazz musicians have found classical repertoire as perfect inspiration for their experiments. Veteran soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman and the much younger pianist Bobby Avey (still in college at the time of this recording) joined forces to explore 19th century art songs and excerpts from larger works, even exploring a bit of music from the 18th and 20th centuries, with the pianist working out most of the arrangements. Staying in tune was an obvious concern for Liebman in this intimate music and his playing is flawless throughout the date, while Avey's playing is also consistently rewarding. Their moody take of Schubert's Etude in E Flat Minor, Op. 10, No. 6 conveys a sorrowful message of longing, while Mendelssohn's May Breezes, Op. 62, No. 1 is a lyrical masterpiece, suggesting an elderly person looking back on life. Their approach to Handel's Sonata No. 6 is lighthearted and playful, while their interpretation of Debussy's delicate Fleur des Bles conjures a pastoral scene with a gentle breeze and light rain. The duo incorporates a bit of Stravinsky-like dissonance into their reworking of Mahler's Der Einsame Im Herbst. Like the original compositions written decades or centuries earlier, this beautifully recorded chamber music CD by Dave Liebman and Bobby Avey will also stand the test of time.

 

From All About Jazz
By Victor Verney
 

Prominent jazz musicians from Bill Evans to Christian Howes have begun their musical careers with formal training in classical music. Others, like Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, have explored classical compositional form during the latter part of their careers. But few have taken on the challenge with the passion and commitment shown by Dave Liebman, as demonstrated on Vienna Dialogues, a recording he made in tandem with pianist Bobby Avey.

Here, Liebman--who began his musical studies on classical piano at age nine--tackles the 19th Century European art song (“lied”), as exemplified by eight of its acknowledged masters. Although he is best known to American jazz buffs for his stints with Miles Davis, Chick Corea and Richie Beirach, Liebman is no stranger to either classical music or the European scene, where he has played and recorded with numerous Continental luminaries, including prestigious big bands and radio orchestras.

Nor is this format something new for Liebman. He has pursued piano/sax duets with a variety of partners for decades (including Beirach), and the title of this disc alludes to his previous duo recording, Manhattan Dialogues (Zoho, 2005), with Phil Markowitz.

In discussing the project, Liebman notes the unique challenges it presented. It is one thing, he says, to appreciate music from the Romantic and Classical repertoire, but to perform and record it is another matter altogether. Accuracy of pitch--notoriously demanding on the soprano sax with its slightly off-center overtones--is crucial, especially in chamber music settings like this one.

The first five tracks, relatively conventional interpretations of Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Handel, give little evidence of Liebman’s jazz sensibilities. The Chopin piece, “Etude in E Flat Minor,” briefly flirts with stepping “outside,” but for the most part the improvisations are relatively constrained. This changes significantly on the final three tracks, however.

According to Liebman, he was seduced away from his classical studies as a teenager after seeing John Coltrane at Birdland, the Village Vanguard and the Half Note. In fact, he eventually played with Elvin Jones in a quartet that also included Steve Grossman and Gene Perla (which, incidentally, I saw in Buffalo, New York as a teenager).

On the Franz Schubert medley “Tranenregen”/”Wasserflut” (“Rain of Tears”/”Water Flute”), Liebman and Avey permit themselves an improvised exploration that evokes Coltrane’s atonal wails and McCoy Tyner’s droning pedal tones. The next track is “Fleur des Bles” (“Cornflower”) by Debussy, who is said to have been an especially significant influence on Bill Evans. Avey’s solo interlude here suggests how Debussy’s romanticism influenced the harmonic sense and pedal technique of Evans--and the jazz pianists who drew from him. The final cut, Gustav Mahler’s “Der Einsame im Herbst” (“The Solitary One in Autumn”), moves from diatonic melancholy to quartal-voiced eruption and back again.

Liebman, who graduated from New York University with a degree in American history, asserts that the advent of harmony was “possibly the greatest contribution of the Western world to the art of music.” His artistry here strongly supports that historical claim.

From All About Jazz
By Nic Jones
 

A programme consisting of music from the likes of Robert Schumann and Georg Friedrich Handel should really be some kind of anathema to jazz per se, but what keeps it from being so on Vienna Dialogues is the deft interplay and deep musical understanding that exists between soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman and pianist Bobby Avey. In as good an example as any of how the music goes round, it's these very qualities that call to mind the work of the Jack Montrose/Bob Gordon Quintet, amongst others, for all of the idiomatic differences. By the same token, the duo's reading of Debussy's "Fleur Des Bles" works like a dream because both players exhibit such a firm grasp of that composer's unassuming way with a melodic line.

Mendelssohn's "May Breezes Op. 62 No.1" is paradoxically given a positively autumnal reading here, though the mood is one of celebration of the passing of time and perhaps the immutable rhythm of the natural world, as opposed to anything forlorn. A similar mood also marks the duo's approach to "Immer Leiser Wird Mein Schlummer Op. 105 No.2," by Johannes Brahms. Here however the impression is filled out by the abundant affinity the two musicians have for this music in particular. Would it be beyond the realms of possibility for them to record the Brahms clarinet sonatas at some point in the future? We can but dream.

If this is something of a departure on record for Liebman in particular, it's just another string to his bow, in the best sense of that term, even when he has recorded so often in this duo format in the past. The results on Vienna Dialogues are steeped in a kind of melancholy beauty that makes for satisfying listening.

 

Dave Liebman and Bobby Avey, ‘Vienna Dialogues’ at the Jazz Gallery

Dave's soprano is a snake charmer. Coaxing the serpent from his hiding is no mean task, and the crystal clear tone that Dave is so  easily capable of achieving will never persuade this venomous beast that the world outside is a worthy place to see through eyes considered by many to be evil but are at best frightened and constantly whistling in a sweet, comforting darkness.
Thickening his voice to rasp, harmonics, screeches and overtones, condensing it into self-inflicted hiding of its own from within a plangent box, Dave persuades King Snake they are brothers and kin in seeking to look at a world of beauty without from within.

As long as you can hear your own hissing echo around you, says Dave to the charmed reptile, you're safe in the myth of your own creation. You have indeed beaten the Lord at his own game so long long ago, and the Garden of Eden of classical music is yours to plunder until the end of time. Now come play.

Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, all that the paradise of long gone Vienna had to offer is back, alive and kicking as if a hundred years or maybe a thousand or perhaps a million hadn't faded away at all. After all, oblivion is no more than a bad dream, won't you please wake up and smell the thick, sweet, romantic Viennese venom you craved so much?

Bobby's piano is a ramshackle cabin. You only hear it through cracks in the wooden walls the termites have been industriously erecting in between the still-standing bits of log. Nothing more than a dim shadow of this piano's intentions can slip through these cracks, but this shadow has got to be the most splendidly colorful shadow you've ever heard, as three-dimensional as any tower of power. With dexterity that would make an octopus sit and sulk for hours, Bobby would make us believe this crumbling edifice contains the clarity of a crystal ball. As indeed it does, but to believe is all our fortune would allow us to do, for the time being…

As a follow up to 'Manhattan Dialogues', Dave Liebman explores the music of long lost Vienna and all that it inspired with the immense help of prodigious young pianist Bobby Avey. Dave does this the only way Dave knows how: from the inside out.

First cracking open some other Dave's head and spilling out the apple strudel for a hungry, drooling audience: Dave Brubeck's 'In Your Own Sweet Way' never sounded so cinnamon sweet and sophisticated. Chopin is next on the chopping block, or is it Jobim? 'Anyone who knows Jobim knows Chopin' claims Dave, and he would know.

The gallery goes dark. Where in New York would you hear these strangely displaced sounds? Upper East Side? Soho? Noho? Tribeca? Harlem? Brooklyn? Not even on Staten Island would you be able to catch such un-New York music (if you really believe such fairy tale lands as Staten Island actually exist..) - nocturnal expressionism at its thickest grind. Ancient resolutions, cobbled streets, Vienna. But is it really here, in New York, and how did it get here?

Apparently this music always existed here, but never outdoors: only within the minds and best intentions of New York's wanderers, workers, shopkeepers, artists, cab drivers, musicians. Somewhere, somehow, these sounds were supposed to be lost in translation but here they are, in mortal flesh and incarnate blood.

'Vienna is the Ground Zero of classical music' is the first thing Dave tells us, and we can't help but follow his gaze and see these sounds of a distinct waterline. Delineating a border between the quiet of a secluded, self-proclaimed, intimately private beach and the chaotic storm of a very public ocean, New York's own Ground Zero at its most personal pain multiplies itself a thousand fold into a single, communal, anguished, diminished chord weeping its fate in unison.

Debussy follows Dave to his own playground. A carousel quickly spins out of control, swings try to fly beyond their leash only to reach the end of their trajectory and discover that the rope that bonds Dave and Bobby is too mighty and impressive to allow them any free mileage. Gravity pulls them back and fun swings them again until they're too dizzy to realize they've been sitting completely still and it's actually the universe that's swinging back and forth around them. Around us. Have we been completely fooled or have we finally been taken in, are we finally inside Dave?

We must be. Bobby's 'From the Inside' couldn't have ringed so clear and true had we been out. A Magrittean street lamp inside our living room is a sure indication we are not dreaming. Heaven is our eternal reward..



Just before playing his original 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', Dave apologized for the unintentional Pink Floyd reference, but he never did apologize for the intentional one:

The lunatic is in my head.

From  http://www.swing2bop.com/reviews.html#160

On the first of these two CDs, Dave Liebman and Phil Markowitz performing with great verve. They recorded this duo set live at the Manhattan School of Music in late 2004. Their inventive improvisations vividly demonstrate their individual and collective skills. Dave and Phil have played together often over the years, and have collaborated on many CDs. Every moment of this latest encounter displays not only their intuitive understanding of one another but also shows how their long association has bred an ability to go one step beyond and find new discrete and mutual areas for the expression of their musical emotions. The result is powerful, intense, and always accessible music. (Buy this now ...)

For the second CD, Liebman's duo partner is the young pianist Bobby Avey. They have taken the unusual step of drawing their material from the music of classical masters such as Chopin, Handel, Mahler, Brahms and Debussy. While first thought might be that this is not suitable ground for jazz improvisers, any such preconception is swept away upon hearing the result. This is a fluid mixing of musical minds that although separated by more than a century in real time demonstrate that music of quality truly knows no boundaries, least of all those imposed by the calendar. Richly melodic in origin, deftly arranged (mainly by Avery), and superbly performed, this is music that while rooted in the past is very much of today and will most certainly still be valid tomorrow.

By Ken Dryden


Although classical musicians have essentially lost their once strong spirit of improvisation, a number of jazz musicians have found classical repertoire as perfect inspiration for their experiments. Veteran soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman and the much younger pianist Bobby Avey (still in college at the time of this recording) joined forces to explore 19th century art songs, excerpts from larger works and even exploring a bit of music from the 18th and 20th centuries, with the pianist working out most of the arrangements. Staying in tune was an obvious concern for Liebman in this intimate music and his playing is flawless throughout the date, while Avey's playing is also consistently rewarding. Their moody take of Schubert's "Etude in E Flat Minor, Op. 10, No. 6" conveys a sorrowful message of longing, while Mendelssohn's "May Breezes, Op. 62, No. 1" is a lyrical masterpiece, suggesting an elderly person looking back on life. Their approach to Handel's "Sonata No. 6" is light hearted and playful, while their interpretation of Debussy's delicate "Fleur Des Bles" conjures a pastoral scene with a gentle breeze and light rain. The duo incorporates a bit of Stravinsky-like dissonance into their reworking of Mahler's "Der Einsame Im Herbst." Like the original compositions written decades or centuries earlier, this beautifully recorded chamber music CD by Dave Liebman and Bobby Avey will also stand the test of time.

 

From Jazz Police web site
By Andrea Canter

Vienna Dialogues is not much of a reach for Liebman when you consider his eclectic history. He’s certainly no stranger to the jazz sax/piano duo, having recorded in this format with Richie Beirach (e.g., 1989’s Chant) and recently on Zoho with Phil Markowitz (2005’s Manhattan Dialogues); and his explorations of classical repertoire include the 2001 recording, Liebman Plays Puccini (Arkadia). Liebman traces his inspiration for the new release to an invited appearance with the Koehne String Quartet in Vienna in 2005, and their performance of an original composition of Thomas Pernes based on Schubert lieder. Finding the composition “very tonal” and easily interpreted by his soprano sax, Liebman notes that “it was a musical high moment of my past few years. And it motivated me to pursue original art songs from the Classical and Romantic era.”

Looking for a young musician to research the music, he quickly connected with Bobby Avey, who took responsibility for most of the arrangements. Notes Liebman, “… deducing chord changes from the piano accompaniment is something that needs to be done for improvisation purposes…Accuracy of pitch is of course 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.” The selected repertoire is “the foundation of modern popular song, a style that grew in America in the 20th century and to which jazz owes such a debt.”

Thus, melody and harmony in the great European Classical/Romantic traditions form the core of Vienna Dialogues, yet jazz rhythms and explorations play varying roles throughout. The recording may be more attractive to fans of Brahms, Schubert, Handel and Mahler than to those seeking the forms and passions of Coltrane or Rollins, or indeed, vintage Liebman, although there are certainly such moments. Anyone who is readily engaged by beautiful songs with harmonic variations will find plenty to enjoy.

The first track, Robert Schumann’s “Romance”, Opus 94 (no.2) introduces Bobby Avey, who is clearly a fine classical pianist with a clean touch. Composed in 1849, it’s a relatively simple, majestic melody to which Liebman adds a bit of a lilting rhythm while leaving the form intact. The two musicians do some trading off but the embellishments are limited to some thrust in rhythm and a spritely variation on the main theme. Chopin’s “Etude in E-Flat Minor,” Opus 10 (no.6) is a slow, melancholy piece initiated by piano, but here Liebman comes in with echoes of Charles Lloyd in his high, almost piercing wails that create some dissonant yet lovely harmonics. Liebman traverses the soprano, climbing into some guttural highs—conjuring a meeting between Coltrane and Chopin.

On Mendelssohn’s “May Breezes” from Songs Without Words, Avey’s classical lines generate a straight reading, while again it is Liebman who counters with whining, trilling pathos and fluttering phrases over the steady chords of the piano. Late into the piece the sax forms more classical shapes, more singable lines. Unlike their beginning, Avey and Liebman end in the same neighborhood. Brahms’ “Immer Leiser Vird Mein Schlummer” was originally written for voice and piano. The duo presents a rather adventurous introduction, their dissonance creating lovely harmonies and tension. Avey’s crystalline right-hand lines fall over a repeating, vamplike bassline. Liebman sounds more like a post bop explorer than a great Romantic, while Avey’s comping is more firmly 19th century. But as the track moves along, Liebman speaks in a more subtle companion voice rather than divergent improvisation, creating variations in intensity and degree of embellishment without straying far from the original structure. The earliest composition on the recording, Handel’s Sonata No.6 was written in the early 18th century, and here is the shortest track at about 3 ½ minutes. Liebman takes the first run through the theme over Avey’s staid bass chords. After a more contemporary introduction, the duo slips back into Handel’s era with a very dark reading, with Avey taking the bottom while Liebman stays on top.

Combining Schubert’s “Tranenregen” (Die Schone Mullerin, D 795) and “Wasserfult” (Winterreise, D 911), the duo brings together more jazz elements. Following Avey’s introduction, Liebman adds very slight syncopation to the first verse. Avey takes the first real improvised section, adding small somersaults around the melody, Liebman answering with a bit of swing before both retreat from invention into more subtle variations as they return to the opening theme, evoling into Wasserfult. Here, a more boppish undertow from Avey supports Liebman’s run through the second theme, and the saxophonist finds plenty of room to twist and turn, briefly taking brief respite in the 19th century before pushing Schubert again into the time machine. Many great jazz pianists cite Debussy as a critical influence (e.g., Bill Evans), and on “Fleur des bles,” Avey makes it easy to hear the connection between the lyricism of late 19th century impressionists and contemporary lyricists. Liebman’s soprano sings with hints of modernism before Avey takes off on an elegant journey reminiscent of some of the abstract solo works of Fred Hersch and Joey Calderazzo. Lirbman’s second round echoes these songful journeys.

The set closes with the most recent (early 1900s) and longest composition, Mahler’s “Der Einsame im Herbst” from his famous Das Lied von der Erde—Song of the Earth. This rendition showcases the stark beauty of the piano/soprano sax duet and again is somewhat reminiscent of Charles Lloyd’s duets with Billy Higgins (Which Way Is East) with its melancholy themes that suggest Middle Eastern traditional music as much as the late Romantics.

Discographers and critics may argue how to classify Vienna Dialogues. Audiences, however, of both classical and jazz preferences, should simply listen and let this glorious partnership render all debates moot.

From Jazz Times - Dec 06
By Scott Albin

In 2005, Dave Liebman was invited to perform with the Koehne String Quartet in Vienna. As he describes in his liner notes to Vienna Dialogues, “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 eras.”
The result is this CD consisting of duets between Liebman’s soprano sax and Avey’s piano. Avey is finishing his studies in the jazz department at SUNY Purchase College in New York, and did most of the arranging. After a year of rehearsal and performance, they recorded for NPR broadcast and this release. Unlike the Classical Jazz Quartet, which drastically alters classical selections to enable straight-ahead improvisation, Liebman and Avey stick to the written music, except where their arrangements allow for improvisation and personal inflections in a jazz vein.

Highlights are many—Chopin’s “Etude in E Flat Minor Op. 10 No 6,” with Liebman’s long, yearning solo and Avey’s strong chording; Avey’s beautiful intro and Liebman’s silky, melodic variations and winding lines on Brahms’ “Immer Leiser wird mein Schlummer Op. 105 No 2”; Liebman’s least-restrained solo, with atonal shrieks and trills on Schubert’s “Tränenregen/Wasserflut”; Avey’s sparkling solo and accompaniment on Debussy’s “Fleur des Blés,” graced with a bell-like sound, his playing here so impressive it overshadows Liebman’s; and Liebman’s deep-toned, wistful opening section on Handel’s “Sonata No 6.” Additionally, Mahler’s “Der Einsame im Herbst” is given a hauntingly memorable treatment, with outstanding solos by each.

As Liebman states, “these melodies and harmonies are ‘classic.’” Here they are interpreted with both feeling and reverence, in performances that will appeal to both jazz and classical fans.

 

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