Billing is everything – and nothing.
Was this the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra with Dave Liebman or vice versa? Answer: both. They were equals in a triumph. Sometimes when star soloists have come to guest with SNJO, the orchestra has played a supporting role, adding colour behind the fireworks.
Here, however, although there were passages of small group activity – not the least exciting of which was Liebman's soprano saxophone successfully daring Alyn Cosker's drumming to get ever more exhilaratingly intense in a superlative head-to-head on Gazelle – the orchestra was fully engaged in arrangements that required and were given the greatest attention to detail.
They were expansive, as on the floating Jung, where the saxophone section actually contributed two flutes, tenor sax, clarinet and bass clarinet in a minor sonic marvel. They were tenacious, as the rampaging New Breed bore witness. And they were wittily attentive: the call and response between Liebman and SNJO's blowing personnel on the swinging Pendulum was epic.
Liebman was masterful. His tonal range on soprano is phenomenal and his ability to move from nursery rhyme simplicity to fierce but always followable complexity in a solo is wonderful. He's his own man for sure and the slightly Wayne Shorterish percussive jabs on Port Ligat, which also featured Liebman, on Indian flute, and SNJO director Tommy Smith on its Japanese cousin, the shakuhachi, playing an effective Spanish scale, only added to his appeal as a communicator. Other soloists, including a blazing Konrad Wiszniewski on tenor saxophone, shone too, but the whole ensemble, especially as when dancing through Day & Night, earned the audience's adulation.
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