Dave Liebman - Lookout Farm (1974) [re-rip]

Lookout Farm is a sublime jazz-fusion album and is indicative of a typical ECM release. Side A kicks off with Pablo’s Story - a Latin influenced track that begins with classical guitar, then flute and electric guitar together with cowbells. It’s poised and beautiful and then it becomes an up-tempo workout with saxophones and congas taking it on a wild ride. Sam’s Float initially sounds mysterious, with a bass line leading into flute trills whilst a female voice wails - it’s like a brief adventure into the ether. Side B is one twenty-four minute track called M.D/Lookout Farm. It begins with acoustic piano followed by plaintive tenor saxophone and as the track develops it is atmospheric and sometimes quite abstract. There’s everything happening in this track – you can call it a jam, but it is coherent and tightly played. Towards the end there is a great percussive section with tablas and congas before a saxophone led freak-out warps time over never-ending elastic minutes. This music is a good example of what was happening in the early 1970s.

Dave Liebman played in Elvin Jones’ band after John Coltrane died in 1967 and then was hired by Mile Davis, playing with the master between 1970-74, the period in which this great record was recorded. Lookout Farm displays similar qualities to Miles Davis’ work during that period, being both adventurous and avant-garde, but also very listenable. The sessions took place in October 1973 and features Liebman on flute and soprano and tenor saxes. The other principle musicians are Richard Beirach, Frank Tusa and Jeff Williams. ~ Jeremy, Closed Groove

ECM Records, ECM 1039 ST, 1974

Recorded 10^th & 11^th October, 1973 at Generation Sound Studios, New York

Personnel:

Dave Liebman - Soprano, Tenor Saxes, Alto C-Flute

Richard Beirach - Electric, Acoustic Piano

Frank Tusa - Electric, Acoustic Bass

Jeff Williams - Drums

Thanks to:

John Abercrombie - Acoustic, Electric Guitar

Armen Halburian - Percussion

Don Alias - Congas, Bongos

Badal Roy - Tablas

Steve Sattan - Tambourine, Cowbell

Eleana Sternberg - Vocals

Track Listing:

A1. Pablo's Story {Liebman} (14:00)

A2. Sam's Float {Liebman} (8:38)

B. M. D. / Lookout Farm {Liebman} (23:46)

Credits:

Producer - Manfred Eicher

Recording Engineer - Tony May

Mixing Engineer - Martin Wieland

A great example of the sound of ECM in the early 70s, with Liebman playing in his post-Miles band angular modernist style with warm electric and acoustic accompaniment from Richard Beirach, Frank Tusa and Jeff Williams rounding out the quartet. The set is made up of three long, spiralling numbers, with the players intersecting and weaving together their lines, blurring the difference between solos, group improvisation and head melodies, and there's a large host of guest players, including John Abercrombie, Don Alias and Badal Roy. Titles include "Pablo's Story", "Sam's Float" and "MD/Lookout Farm". © Dusty Groove, Inc.

Enrico Rava Quartet - Ah (1979) [vinyl]

>>Ah<< features bassist Giovanni Tommaso, drummer Bruce Ditmas and Franco D'Adrea, whose pianism lights up even the darkest corners.

Feeling a little under the weather? Then open up and say Ah, because Doctor Rava is in! This warm rainy day session is the perfect sonic elixir for what ails you. The sumptuous diagnostics of “Lulu” lay their pianistic hands upon us first, and with them the album’s leitmotif. Rava and D’Andrea are in fine conversational form here, as they ever are, cracking open a Pandora’s Box of free improv before re-attuning to a smoldering vamp. Rava starts us off strongly in “Outsider,” in which he swings his rhythm section around and around like children holding hands in a field. A swift kick from Ditmas brings us solid thematic closure. “Small Talk” allows Tommaso his just airtime in what is by far the highlight of the examination. Rava checks our pulse in the groovier “Rose Selavy,” breezes wistfully through the title track, and gives way to “Trombonauta,” the album’s brief yet impactful ballad, before ending “At The Movies.” This eclectic ode breathes with the magic of Cinema Paradiso while threatening to topple from the weight of its own remembrance. ~ by Tyran Grillo, ecmreviews.com.

ECM Records, ECM 1166, 1980

Recorded December, 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, Germany

Musicians:

Enrico Rava - Trumpet

Franco D'Andrea - Piano

Giovanni Tommaso - Bass

Bruce Ditmas - Drums

Tracks:

A1. Lulu (8:05)

A2. Outsider (6:16)

A3. Small Talk (5:00)

B1. Rose Selavy (4:51)

B2. Ah (6:00)

B3. Trombonauta (2:46)

B4. At The Movies (5:45)

All Compositions by Enrico Rava

Credits:

Producer - Thomas Stowsand

Engineer - Martin Wieland

Cover - Michelango Pistoletto

Layout - Dieter Rehm

Manfred Schoof Quintet - Scales

A perfect album... they don't come along too often do they?  Luckily for you, today's offering is just that.  It defies genre as avante-garde is too narrow a descriptive.  No, "Scales" is all at once melodic, chaotic, free, constructed, inside, outside... you dig??

It's incredible that this was released in 1976, it still sounds incredibly modern and fresh.  Schoof's compositions and musical soundscapes are absolute sonic perfection.  His music is the ultimate expression as he conveys moody brooding right through to elated joy.  Infact all the players contribute incredibly to each tune, be it locking the feel or soloing in front.

Pilz's bass clarinet is a breathy and dreamy addition - perfect in creating the vibe Schoof has crafted.  I also want to say that Hubner's brushes are something to behold.  He is able to play incredibly tight and technical fills while remaining in the background.  Indeed, this band are tight and it's clear they have played together beyond the studio.  I feel the balance they achieve between freedom and arrangement is a perfect one, something I prefer far more to say Miles' Bitches Brew group.  There is a certain accessibility that Schoof has added to the songs.  When he is playing, the notes really convey an emotion that you can feel, as opposed to just listening to a technical performance.

ECM recently issued a 2 disc set featuring all 3 of Schoof's albums released during the seventies.  "Scales" was the first of these and in my opinion, the best.  This LP is absolute mint and the fidelity is like all ECM recordings... overwhelmingly amazing.  The dynamics are breathtaking and they will carry you away to another zone.  I am really proud of this transfer, it's surely one of my best.  Captured at 24/44.1 wav and dithered to 16/44.1 FLAC, this is a truly minty affair.  Enjoy!!!

The title track of Scales opens both album and set with a primal trumpet cry. It is Schoof’s calling card: a rip in the ether from which flows undeniable light. Van ‘t Hof poeticizes this light from a place beyond waking. And indeed, the more instruments are added, the dreamier the music becomes. Over time, Pilz’s gorgeous rasp adds tactility, so that surreal gestures begin to feel familiar. Pilz stands out also in “Ostinato,” which finds him sharing a stepwise ground line with Lenz. We are so fully mired in this swampy unison that when he breaks free from the waves, his voice feels like a shaded benediction in what is easily among the finest tracks in the ECM archive. Van ‘t Hof’s organ drone is also notable here. Over it drums seem to describe abandoned castles, stone by stone, until they loom before us unscathed by time. The keyboardist provides deep color shifts throughout the program, evoking early Steve Kuhn vis–à–vis electric piano in “For Marianne” and spacy atmospheres in “Weep And Cry.” The former’s cloud rolls give Schoof vast chromatic freedom, while the latter evokes sunset before cooling into a twilit canopy, now alive as the darkness reveals its dance through the bass clarinet. The scene closes its eyes with “Flowers All Over” in the album’s most joyous music. Schoof rides a harmonic dolphin, plunging variously into intuitive digs, likewise inspiring Pilz to grand emotional heights. - Tyran Grillo / Between Sound And Space

Manfred Schoof: trumpet & flugelhorn; Michel Pilz: bass clarinet; Jasper van't Hof: piano, electric piano & organ;  Günter Lenz: double-bass; Ralf R. Hübner: drums.

Japo / ECM Records

ECM 19004

1976

A1 Scales 10:33
A2 Ostinato 12:45
B1 For Marianne 6:58
B2 Weep And Cry (Composed By – Ralf R. Hübner) 10:15
B3 Flowers All Over (Composed By – Jasper Van't Hof) 7:30

Steve Swallow - Home

Steve Swallow – Home · Music By Steve Swallow To Poems By Robert Creeley
Label:ECM Records – ECM 1160 (vinyl to flac)

A1 Some Echoes 5:35    
A2 "She Was Young..." (From "The Finger") 3:32    
A3 "Nowhere One..." 4:57    
A4 Colors     4:22    
A5 Home     3:20    
B1 In The Fall 4:00    
B2 "You Didn't Think..." 2:53    
B3 Ice Cream 4:16    
B4 Echo     5:22    
B5 Midnight 3:42



    Bass, Composed By – Steve Swallow
    Design – Barbara Wojirsch
    Drums – Bob Moses
    Engineer [Recording] – David Baker
    Lyrics By [Poems] – Robert Creeley
    Mixed By – Martin Wieland
    Photography By [Cover] – Joel Meyerowitz
    Piano – Steve Kuhn
    Producer – Manfred Eicher
    Saxophone – David Liebman
    Synthesizer – Lyle Mays
    Voice – Sheila Jordan

Recorded September 1979 at Columbia Recording Studios, New York

"This is a fine (& rare) example of a composer really hearing & bringing out a poet's voice inside the poems. Bob Creeley's concentrated poetry packs an emotional wallop behind an occasionally cool facade. So it is an interesting test to place these words/lyrics with a female singer. Perhaps the most important test is that the poems do function as lyrics, generating an unexpected musical-ness. The band is wonderful. Everyone plays with creative commitment to the material & to Steve Swallow's vision. The proceedings feel a bit dry here & there, the Manfred Eicher Effect. But this is a very good album; one of the few I recommend to poets for both pleasure & the possibilities it suggests."

Bob Rixon