The Nuttree Quartet Standards JOHN ABERCROMBIE JERRY BERGONZI ADAM NUSSBAUM GARY VERSACE Kind of Blue Records, 2008 Now available at AMAZON.COM Also available at CD UNIVERSE

WE3: Three For All DAVE LIEBMAN   ADAM NUSSBAUM STEVE SWALLOW Challenge Records, 2006 CD Review - by John Kelman   allaboutjazz.com CD Review - by Robert R. Calder   allaboutjazz.com CD Review - by Michael Bailey   Challenge Records International Now available at AMAZON.COM Also available at CD UNIVERSE

We Three -- a review All About Jazz  2006 By John Kelman Just because artists have played with each other in other contexts doesn’t necessarily mean they will be successful when they come together as a unit for the first time. Saxophonist Dave Liebman has worked with electric bassist Steve Swallow before—most notably on Swallow’s first release as a leader, Home (ECM, 1980)—and drummer Adam Nussbaum in an early group also featuring a young John Scofield. Nussbaum has been Swallow’s drummer of choice for many years, most notably on his marvellous trio record, Damaged in Transit (XtraWATT/ECM, 2004). But all three have never worked together before. While there’s enough individual chemistry to suggest that putting them in a room together would be a slam dunk, that's not guaranteed to be the case. Fortunately, these three don’t just work well together, they sound as if they’ve been doing it for years, making their new group We Three and its debut album Three for All as easygoing and effortless an affair as one could ask for. Considering the strong personalities involved, what’s most refreshing about Three for All is how purely collaborative it is, reflecting each player's personality. Swallow has always possessed a dry sense of humour, and his three contributions manage to be challenging while keeping tongue planted firmly in cheek. Even his gentle ballad “The Start of Something Small” feels just the slightest bit idiosyncratic. Liebman’s cascading notes suggest greater power, but never lose sight of the delicate underpinning from Nussbaum’s brushwork. Jaco Pastorius may be most cited as the player who redefined the potential of the electric bass, but Swallow’s approach—exploiting the full range of the instrument and combining harmonically suggestive lines with more direct chord voicings—is uniquely innovative just the same, though it may not have the same panache. Considering Liebman’s propensity for post-Coltrane expressionism, his two contributions—the metrically challenged but subdued “Cycling” and the gradually building “The Jewish Warrior”—are surprisingly understated, despite their unassailable swing. Still, his soprano solo on “The Jewish Warrior” burns as brightly as anything on the disc, and Nussbaum is right there with him, starting on brushes, but eventually switching to sticks and ultimately greater force. Still, despite the occasional burst of heat, Three for All is so relaxed that one can forget just how potent a combination this is. Despite the drummer's energetic and telepathically locked-in support from Swallow, as well as Liebman’s leaning-to-the- extreme tenor work, Nussbaum's “BTU”—a carryover from his work in guitarist John Abercrombie’s organ trio—retains a litheness that doesn’t use that energy as a crutch, but rather a tool for organic evolution. A pensive reading of “I Only Have Eyes for You,” a look at Miles Davis’ “All Blues” that proves you can swing in 5/4, and a wry take on Thelonious Monk’s “Played Twice” support the trio’s unhurried approach with its own material. Three for All is an album that's so inherently cohesive, it almost passes by unnoticed. But its staying power rests in the greater depth it reveals with each successive listen. Visit Dave Liebman, Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum on the web. Track listing: What Time Is It; Played Twice; We 3; Up and Adam; The Jewish Warrior; Whistling Past the Graveyard; I Only Have Eyes for You; Cycling; All Blues; The Start of Something Small; BTU. Personnel: Dave Liebman: saxophones, flutes; Steve Swallow: electric bass; Adam Nussbaum: drums. Style: Modern Jazz/Free Improvisation

We Three -- a review All About Jazz  2006 By Robert R. Calder This is maybe my favourite Dave Liebman recording, in part because of the other two players on it. Drummer Adam Nussbaum composed the title track, and by alternating between the bass and guitar capacities of his instrument, Steve Swallow makes a little masterpiece of Liebman's creative improvisation. There's much more to it than pretty phrasing--nothing loose, perfect tension, no longueurs. When Swallow goes all bass on his own “Up and Adam,” Liebman's tenor skips, displaying virtues associated variously with Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins; and on another Swallow number, the lyrical, midtempo “Whistling Past the Graveyard,” the tenor echoes are nearer to Ben Webster. Liebman's no chameleon; these varying resemblances just help map his exceptional personal tonal variety. He uses space, and the spaces he leaves on this number fill amazingly, with Nussbaum's alterations of dynamics and accent. Notice Swallow's walking bass on his electric instrument. ”The Jewish Warrior” starts out almost Celtic, Liebman's soprano sounding flute-toned, Swallow sounding almost Indian. “I Only Have Eyes for You,” which starts with the bassist playing his instrument like a guitar, later finds him and Nussbaum keeping things going through a virtuoso multi-note ballad performance in the line of Benny Golson, Don Byas, and Lucky Thompson. Attention to detail liberates this set from looseness, and when Liebman repeats a riff or motif, he does so with new phrasing each time. Swallow calls upon a whole range of voices on the bass guitar. Its middle voice gets great play on Nussbaum's “Cycling.” Yet another of Swallow's compositions here, “The Start of Something Small,” could pass for an unknown Ellington ballad for Johnny Hodges. There are three terrific ballad performances here, as well as Nussbaum's riff-theme ”BTU,” a fast-medium performance surging to such a temperature that the studio fade of the last bars might have been a safety measure. The rhythm titans provide a very full dynamic background for Liebman on Miles Davis's ”All Blues,” with a very notable train rhythm passage toward the conclusion. The duo passage on Thelonious Monk's “Played Twice,” bridging between a theme statement on soprano (something like the recently deceased Steve Lacy's classic performance on The Straight Horn) and Liebman's own very individual solo. The last time I saw Lacy, I came away from the performance with a friend asking me, “why is jazz so satisfying?” I'll refer him to this set.

We Three -- a review Challenge Jazz  2006 By C. Michael Bailey We Three is a trio of giants, composed of winds-fixture Dave Liebman, ubiquitous bassist Steve Swallow, and accomplished drummer Adam Nussbaum. With a line up like this, the listener might expect something a bit out of the ordinary and that is precisely what he or she gets. If Dave Liebman is in the picture, Thelonious Monk cannot be far behind, and indeed that master appears on the rarely covered “Played Twice.” Liebman’s soprano tone is sharp and tart in the head and then lazily lags into the solo, supported by Swallow’s elastic bass fiddling. The trio relationship here is more about contrapuntal interplay than ensemble performance. The players stop just short of going their separate ways and maintain the common groove. The Monkian spirit of “Played Twice” infuses this disc with adventure and abstraction. The disc opens on a funky spunky note with “What Time Is It,” with all on board for a boisterous ride. Adam Nussbaum’s “We Three” is introduced by a lengthy soprano saxophone figure before stretching into a nuevo ballade with Steve Swallow’s signature strummed bass. When soloing, Swallow chooses a circuitous harmonic path that broadens the composition’s time. Swallow returns the favor of composition with “Up And Adam,” where Liebman plays tenor over a treacherous time signature nailed down by Nussbaum and Swallow (Monk is never far away). The standard “I Only Have Eyes For You” is presented with a Swallow pizzicato introduction before Liebman’s tenor flows in languidly over Nussbaum’s light tom-tom play. Miles Davis’ “All Blues” is taken at a full waltz, Liebman’s soprano saxophone presenting the theme with virtuosic conviction. Trio dates don't get much better than this one. If We Three is where the saxophone trio has come since Sonny Rollins’ trios in the late ‘50s, then the direction must be right.