Jazz Articles about Lloyd Haber

About Lloyd Haber

Album Review

Freedom Art Quartet: First Dance

Read "First Dance" reviewed by Carl Medsker

by Carl Medsker
July 12, 2025

Raucous, brash and freewheeling, First Dance by The Freedom Art Quartet is rooted in the past yet fresh and contemporary. The album should sound familiar to those who have ventured outside the mainstream and spent time with Ornette Coleman and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. Those forces are strong in the band, but labeling them retro avant-garde would be unfair and simplistic. There are echoes of New Orleans second lines, a heavy dose of the blues, post-bop elements, a nod ...

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Album Review

Freedom Art Quintet: Spirits Awake

Read "Spirits Awake" reviewed by Matt Merewitz

by Matt Merewitz
October 9, 2003

A relative newcomer to the New York avant scene, the Freedom Art Quintet seems to fit in historically somewhere in between the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the funky Cannonball Adderley Quintet.The opener, “In the Thick of It,” suggests the avant-garde while keeping things in time and relatively harmonically tame. The writing is interesting enough to catch your attention, while the bridge is abrupt, too short, and extremely corny. Thickness is followed by sparseness on “Kimbunga,” a little ...

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Album Review

Freedom Art Quartet: Spirits Awake

Read "Spirits Awake" reviewed by Jeff Stockton

by Jeff Stockton
August 25, 2003

On Spirits Awake, the Freedom Art Quartet immediately announces its overall dedication to groove and funky second-line beats with "In the Thick of It," as Jaribu Shahid’s ripely swinging bass gives way to Abraham Burton’s lush, confident tenor and Omar Kabir’s incisive and radiant trumpet. On "Kimbunga," Kabir switches to flugelhorn and makes it growl like a trombone without the aid of a slide or plunger mute, and guest altoist Douglas Yates solos busily before the band returns to state ...