Dave Liebman & Michael Stephans - Lineage (2013)

About twenty years ago, award winning saxophonist David Liebman began making a list of rock and pop songs that he loved and wanted to revisit someday, in order to re-create them in a contemporary series of settings that would be consistent with his approach to improvisational music. For a variety of reasons – notably that life intervened – Liebman shelved the “pop project” and went on to follow a wide variety of musical pursuits, from world and classical musical genres to liturgical Jewish music and as we know, jazz of all sorts.

The idea of deconstructing / reconstructing pop songs didn’t resurface until 2009 when Lieb and I began talking about our mutual love of the music that we grew up listening to in the late 50’s and 1960’s: Early Elvis, groups like The Platters, The Surfaris, and The Champs, romantic pop crooners like Johnny Mathis, and popular singers like Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Joe Cocker, Simon & Garfunkel and of course, The Beatles.

We selected songs that we both loved and began making plans to record some of them in unique contemporary settings. What we’d hoped to do was to “put old wine in new bottles,” using the language of contemporary improvised music to re-clothe “the oldies” in new harmonies and new rhythms, without destroying the integrity of the originals. Hence, you’ll find The Champs’ “Tequila” as a quirky, angular, and space funky re-take in 7/8 time; “Love Me Tender” as a reharmonized, Satie-like ballad centered around tenor saxophone and piano; surfin’ favorite “Wipe Out” as a genre-bending group improvisation bordering on free jazz; and two by the Beatles: “Here, There and Everywhere,” re-defined as a mysterious floating piece of musical ephemera; and “Eleanor Rigby,” with its beautiful, almost pastoral tone colors and vibrant improvisations. And these are just a few of the pieces we’ve recorded. To pull this kind of project off successfully, Lieb and I – no spring chickens in the age department – agreed to enlist the talents of two of the best and the brightest stars of this current generation’s improvising musicians. We had been playing in a quartet setting with 20-somethings, pianist Bobby Avey and bassist Evan Gregor, both of whom were originally students of both David and his wife, Caris, since high school. Bobby and Evan went on to complete their degrees in music and have become a part of the busy and exciting New York jazz scene where they are gaining solid reputations as both instrumentalists and as exciting, original composers.

For this project, Lieb, Bobby, Evan, and I arranged a number of songs each. And to expand the musical timbres and palette of the quartet, we invited the venerable and brilliant Vic Juris (who played in Lieb’s band for over twenty years) to play electric and acoustic guitars on a number of tracks, and also asked another Liebman ex-student (and young talent), Matt Vashlishan, to lend his sonic and creative skills on various woodwinds, to a number of tracks: again, two guys from different generations coming together with the rest of the ensemble to create some unique musical visions.

The joy is that the group is totally inter-generational; it’s three older guys and three guys who are many years their junior, collectively bringing their original viewpoints to the table and working toward the center of a combined musical outlook. Bobby, Evan, and Matt deliver freshness to these pop tunes, all of which were written and performed before they were born. In that sense, the lineage of Lineage is an unbroken line from the past to the present and is an entity of musical fathers and sons, creating sound-visions together onward into the future.~ Liner Notes, Michael Stephans

Tracklist:

1. Mr. Sandman (Pat Ballard)
2. Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney / John Lennon)
3. Visions (Stevie Wonder)
4. [Tequila (Chuck Rio)
5. I Only Have Eyes For You (Harry Warren)
6. Walk, Don’t Run (Johnny Smith)
7. Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
8. Wipe Out (The Surfaris)
9. Here, There and Everywhere (Paul McCartney / John Lennon)
10. Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley / Vera Matson)

Personnel:

Dave Liebman – soprano & tenor saxaphones, wooden flute;
Michael Stephans – drums, percussion;
Vic Juris – electric & acoustic guitar;
Bobby Avey – acoustic & electric piano, organ;
Matt Vashlishan – alto & soprano saxaphones, flute, clarinet, EWI;
Evan Gregor – electric & acoustic bass.