It's not often that one hears of musical relationships that last as long as twenty years, but saxophonist Dave Liebman and pianist Richie Beirach have shared a musical friendship that spanned a number of ensembles and contexts; sometimes, as in the case of their groundbreaking group Lookout Farm, they adapted to current trends, but they never followed them without injecting their own personalities.

While there are commercial recordings available as documentation of their work together, including the 1974 ECM recording Lookout Farm , the 1976 duo recording Forgotten Fantasies and the 1989 recording of their group Quest, Of One Mind , most of these recordings have either never been released on CD or are sadly out of print. Additionally there has never been the opportunity for a broader audience to experience what these groups sounded like live, where the magic really happened. Thankfully, courtesy of Dave Liebman and Mosaic Records, that oversight has been corrected. Mosaic Select: Liebman & Beirach , featuring live recordings of Lookout Farm, Quest and the two in an intimate duet setting, finally provides an opportunity to assess these artists in a context where they are allowed to stretch out to the fullest. While the recording quality is a bit inconsistent the performances compensate, making this an exciting and revealing document of two musicians who clearly lived in each others' stylistic pockets.

Lookout Farm, while garnering some notoriety at the time, never managed to acquire the same audience that was listening to other fusion groups of the time, including Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever and Headhunters. The likely reason for this is that, while everyone seemed to be melding rock and funk elements to jazz, most groups' emphasis was on the rock and funk side. Lookout Farm was, first and foremost, a jazz band. They swung hard; they explored the post-Coltrane harmonic language. To be sure, they also exploited the funk, Indian and 20th Century classical elements that Liebman had been exposed to as a member of Miles Davis' groups for the recordings On The Corner and Get Up With It , but more than any other fusion band of the time, they remained clearly associated with a looser improvisational framework. And this association was all the more evident in their live work where, pared down to a quintet featuring Liebman, Beirach, bassist Frank Tusa, drummer Jeff Williams and percussionist Todd Barkan, they avoided the density of their studio recordings, in particular the ECM date.

Disc One is taken from a particularly inspired Lookout Farm performance from the Keystone Korner in San Francisco in '76. Eschewing the compositional complexities of groups like Return to Forever and going, instead, for pieces that more closely mirrored the traditional AABA format, these tracks highlight a group that, with a few years of playing under their belt, had reached a remarkable level of empathy. Beirach, always a listening accompanist, is especially in tune with Liebman's chromaticism and modality. While some critics have asserted that switching to electric piano resulted in a loss of a performer's individuality, that electric instrument lent a somewhat samey sound, Beirach assures that this is clearly not the case. Whether playing Fender Rhodes on the funk-based, irregular-metered "The Iguana's Ritual," or on acoustic piano for the tender ballad, "Mitsuku," Beirach's lyrical and richly textured harmonic personality rings through loud and clear.

One of the more interesting tracks in this programme of original compositions is their take on Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia," which deconstructs the rhythm section into a 5/4 vamp over which Liebman fragments the popular theme. Replete with a slightly funkified samba feel, this track goes a long way to demonstrating the difference between Lookout Farm and other fusion bands. By taking classic material and completely reinventing it they show their reverence for their roots while, at the same time, providing a wholly original viewpoint. Special mention should be made of Williams, who has remained curiously under the radar in a thirty-year career, and provides a powerful polyrhythmic push that fits perfectly with the pedal-to-the-metal intensity of this band. And as electric as the proceedings are, Williams and Tusa never lose site of the swing; witness their hard-hitting post-bop approach to "Lookout Farm," burning underneath Liebman's Coltrane-like sheets of sound.