Time Immemorial

Album review

David Liebman conceived of this unaccompanied record as a more universal, less self-centered follow-up to 1985's Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner. Walter Quintus engineered both discs, and on this one he's given credit as a co-artist, in acknowledgement of the project's extensive reliance on sound processing and recording technique. Liebman plays multiple horns -- soprano, tenor, alto, and baritone, as well as bamboo flute and dudek. The music is divided into four long movements -- "Before," "Then," "Now," and "After" -- with two specific tone rows serving as a springboard for composition and improvisation. Only occasional passages feature solo horn; much of the time Liebman overdubs on top of some sort of rhythm or harmony track, which is itself a horn line that Quintus has manipulated beyond recognition. Liebman's "special effects" -- clapping keys on the baritone, blowing through mouthpieces only, blowing through horn bodies without their necks, and so on -- all become grist for Quintus's mill. The result is a powerful kind of electro-acoustic music, in which a saxophone can sound like a drum machine, a synth bass, an electric guitar. But Liebman's unprocessed horn looms large as well: his tenor solo on "Then" is phenomenal, as is his baritone work on "Now." Some may find the opening voiceover a bit cheesy, although it's worth noting that this kind of stage-setting intro is more often heard in hip-hop than in jazz. Overall, the highly abstract sonic landscapes of Time Immemorial won't please everyone, and the record certainly is not representative of Liebman's achievements as a "jazz" player. But it's a well-crafted and compelling artistic statement, a risky venture that turned out beautifully.

© David R. Adler /TiVo