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Lookout Farm: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975

By Chris May
October 23, 2019
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Lookout Farm: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975

Fasten your seat belt, please.

Dave Liebman

saxophone
b.1946

" data-original-title="" title="">Dave Liebman and

Richie Beirach

piano
b.1947

" data-original-title="" title="">Richie Beirach's club date with

Lookout Farm

" data-original-title="" title="">Lookout Farm barely lets up during an hour of ferocious jazz going on jazz-rock. It's in roughly the same bag as

" data-original-title="" title="">Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (CBS, 1970) electric albums, some of which had Liebman in the lineup. The tape lay in the vaults of German radio station NDR, for whom it was recorded for broadcast in 1975, until its rediscovery by Jazzline Records. It forms part of the label's high-calibre series of archive recordings made at the famously louche Uncle Po's Carnegie Hall in Hamburg during the 1970s and 1980s.

Live At Uncle Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975 follows Lookout Farm's eponymous 1973 debut on ECM. The ECM album was made during Liebman's four-year tenure with Davis; this Jazzline release came shortly after he left to pursue his own career. The group includes a second Davis alumnus in percussionist

Badal Roy

tablas

" data-original-title="" title="">Badal Roy.

Lookout Farm was a nominally collective affair, focused on group improvisation, but its stars were undoubtedly Beirach and Liebman. Beirach attacks the electric piano with an intensity rarely matched by any of the keyboard players in Davis' contemporaneous bands, though not, it must be said, with the melodic invention possessed by Davis sidemen

Herbie Hancock

piano
b.1940

" data-original-title="" title="">Herbie Hancock,

Joe Zawinul

keyboards
1932 - 2007

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Zawinul,

Chick Corea

piano
1941 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Chick Corea or

Keith Jarrett

piano
b.1945

" data-original-title="" title="">Keith Jarrett. Electric bassist

Frank Tusa

bass, acoustic
b.1947

" data-original-title="" title="">Frank Tusa and drummer

Jeff Williams

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Jeff Williams turn the dial up to eleven and mostly keep it there, and Badal Roy struggles to make himself heard during the tumult (adding some nice grooves when he succeeds).

Three of the five tracks are Liebman originals. "Your Lady" is by

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane; in this incarnation she proves to be more of a riot grrrl. "I'm A Fool To Want You" is by

Frank Sinatra

vocals
1915 - 1998

" data-original-title="" title="">Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf and Joel Herron. Lookout Farm's reading is on a different planet to better known ones by Sinatra,

Billie Holiday

vocals
1915 - 1959

" data-original-title="" title="">Billie Holiday and

Chet Baker

trumpet and vocals
1929 - 1988

" data-original-title="" title="">Chet Baker.

Badal's cloistering aside, audio quality is superb, close to studio standards, and audience applause, though enthusiastic, is not allowed to intrude.

After the break-up of Lookout Farm, Liebman and Beirach continued their relationship in the longer-lived band Quest and on a series of collaborative albums. They still record together. Please keep your seat belt fastened.

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Track Listing

Naponoch; The Iguana��s Ritual; I��m A Fool To Want You; Your Lady; Fireflies.

Personnel

Lookout Farm

Dave Liebman: soprano and tenor saxophones, flute, percussion; Richie Beirach: electric piano; Frank Tusa: electric bass; Jeff Williams: drums; Badal Roy: percussion.

Album information

Title: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975 | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: Jazzline Records

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