Miles Away - Dave Liebman

May

22

Miles Away - Dave Liebman

≡ Category: 1990s, Don't Bother, Fusion, Post Bop, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

Rating:

Dave Liebman started his career playing with people like John McLaughlin, Miles Davis and Elvin Jones. His first group that I know of was Open Sky, a trio with drummer Bob Moses and bassist Frank Tusa. Then Liebman went on to found Lookout Farm, with Richie Beirach, Don Alias, John Abercrombie, Frank Tusa, and Jeff Williams. For a brief time, Liebman had a quintet with John Scofield, Terumasa Hino on trumpet, bassist Ron McLure, and Adam Nussbaum on drums. After that came Quest, with Beirach, Ron McClure and Billy Hart on drums. With the exception of Terumasa Hino and John Abercrombie, every person in all of these groups was a world class musician.

Since 1994, Dave Liebman’s has been fielding the Dave Liebman Quintet, with guitarist Vic Juris, Phil Markowitz on keys, Tony Marino on bass, and Jamey Haddad on drums, making this Liebman’s longest running band. There is no polite way to say this accurately. These guys are second string players. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of them. They’re competent enough technically, but they’re bland, bland, bland.

Vic Juris has no personality as a guitarist. He’s a carbon copy of a carbon copy of a carbon copy. Whatever Phil Markowitz plays goes in one ear and out the other. Worse yet, his synthesizer patches are horrendous, pure cheese. Bassist Tony Marino’s lines are dull, uncreative and lifeless. It’s more difficult to assess Jamey Haddad. Playing behind guys like these, anyone would sound bad, but still, his grooves feel overly rigid.

The result is not a whole lot more flavorful than if Liebman had done a solo recording by soloing over tracks laid down on a Fairlight sequencer.

Liebman’s backing band is so terrible, I’m not sure how much responsibility for the abject failure of Miles Away to lay on Liebman’s arrangements. Certainly, Liebman has taken standards by such greats as John Coltrane and breathed new life into them before, as on the much superior Homage to John Coltrane, but then again, he had two crack bands to work with on that release.

Code M.D., from Miles’ Decoy release, receives a fusiony treatment here which isn’t really a whole lot different than the original. It’s friggin’ awful. Compare this with the performance of Mr. Day on Homage to John Coltrane. If Liebman was using that band, this arrangement of Code M.D. might have had a chance.

So far, I’ve done nothing but rip this date, which is depressing because Dave Liebman is one of my favorite saxophone players and band leaders. But thank goodness I’ve got something nice to say.

When Dave Liebman pays tribute to one of jazz’s giants, he usually picks great tunes which have not been done to death, and Miles Away is no exception. Check out this set list: Code M.D., Wili, In A Silent Way, 81, Fall, All Blues, Pan Piper, Milestones, Smooch, Solar, Boplicity. I don’t know about you, but that set list gets me excited all by itself, before I’ve even heard a note. Back in the early 90s, when it was unfashionable, Liebman didn’t dismiss any of Miles’ artistic periods (well, except the final one when he was playing covers of Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper tunes, which deserved to be ignored). In addition, notice how Liebman organizes the date. The songs travel back in time, from most recent to the beginning of Miles’ career. That’s so cool.

Recorded with great musicians, Miles Away could have been wonderful. As it is, Miles Away is a crushing disappoint.

I know that it’s important to be able to maintain a band over time. But did Liebman have to choose these musicians? Surely there were talented young people on the New York scene who would have been totally jazzed to play with a giant like Liebman. In fact, Liebman has played with many, many young people over the years (although regrettably, most of them sucked). But couldn’t he have held an audition and just picked the best players or something? In my opinion, it would be better to get a great band together that might only last a few years, rather than to cobble together a bunch of second rate players because you know they’ll stick around.

Even at this late date, when Dave Liebman gets a decent band together, he’s a killer. Check out 2008’s Negative Space date if you don’t believe me, which has Liebman playing with some Italian jazz musicians.

So, should you bother to own Miles Away? Only if you’re a Dave Liebman completist, and probably not even then.