West Side Story Today - Dave Liebman/Gil Goldstein

Jan

29

West Side Story Today - Dave Liebman/Gil Goldstein

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

DON’T BOTHER

Rating:

Regular readers of this site are probably well aware of my admiration for both Dave Liebman and Gil Goldstein. Dave Liebman has been one of the most important post-Coltrane saxophonists since the mid-70s. Gil Goldstein has distinguished himself mostly as an arranger, especially in his work with Michael Brecker (Wide Angles) and the SF Jazz Collective.

However, when we’re talking about giants in jazz, it’s part of my responsibility to let you know about recordings which are less than successful, which brings us to West Side Story Today (released on Owl Records), an attempt to update and comment on the work of Leonard Bernstein, who wrote the wonderful music for the musical West Side Story.

I think the main problem here is conceptual. The decision was made to orchestrate Bernstein’s work with sequencing from a McIntosh computer, various keyboards, drum machines, and an accordian. The result, sonically speaking, is pure cheese.

I wrote this review while listening to the CD again, and to my surprise, the arrangements are not as clumsy as I had thought. It’s the laughable textures achieved by the electronics used by Gil Goldstein that make it seem that way. Bernstein deserves better.

Maybe the economics of the project prohibited the use of an actual band. If so, Liebman and Goldstein should have left well enough alone.

Maybe Liebman and Goldstein talked themselves into this approach to the project. The discussion might have gone something like this. “Hey, Gil. I’ve always loved the music of Leonard Bernstein. But here’s the interesting thing. The inner city culture of today is a 100 times more savage than when Bernstein wrote West Side Story. What if we reorchestrated the tunes to have more dissonance?” “Yeah, Dave, I totally know where you’re coming from. But nobody cares about Bernstein, anymore. Who’s going to fund a band for this purpose?” “Yeah, that is a problem.” “I know! We can use electronic instrumentation! Wouldn’t that update the music nicely for a new generation of listeners?”

Sorry, fellahs. All you’ve managed to do with West Side Story Today is cheapen Bernstein’s original. What a pity.

Man, I’ve got to find something nice to say.

As is usually the case when Dave Liebman pays tribute to an artist, he doesn’t pick the tunes everyone has heard a thousand times, but unearths gems such as One Hand, One Heart, the only completely successful track on West Side Story Today. Other examples in Liebman’s discography of his uncanny knack of picking wonderful but obscure tunes to cover include Homage to John Coltrane and Monk’s Mood.