Chant - Dave Liebman/Richie Beirach

Apr

28

Chant - Dave Liebman/Richie Beirach

≡ Category: 1980s, Avant-Guarde, Post Bop, Reviews, Worth A Listen |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

WORTH A LISTEN

Rating:

Chant represents the logical end point of the duet recordings of saxophonist Dave Liebman and pianist Richie Beirach. Over the course of fifteen years, Liebman and Beirach have been moving closer to concepts of 20th century classical music in their playing and further away from swing.

In Chant, the result is a sort of chamber jazz, with an extreme amount of dissonance and almost no swing. For most people, this will be an experience like water torture crossed with a dentist’s drill.

I happen to love both Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach and I still find Chant to be a huge challenge to listen to, frequently more trouble than it’s worth.

That said, there are rewards to be had. The communication between these two musicians is extraordinary and there are individual passages of great beauty. But in the end, the unrelenting complexity of the material, and the general lack of swing, are formidable stumbling blocks.

Because of the technical excellence of the music, I have to give Chant a Worth A Listen rating. But most people will not want to put in the amount of effort this music demands.