Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake: Chi

14

Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake: Chi

By

Sign in to view read count
Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake: Chi
Recorded live at John Zorn's New York City experimental jazz club The Stone in May of 2018, the trio of saxophonist extraordinaire Dave Liebman and multi-instrumentalists/percussionists Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph use their album Chi to present amazing tone poems and dynamic musical explorations.

Liebman's full-throated saxophone voicings juxtapose with Drake and Rudolph's rolling drums and percussion instruments, which splatter and bounce like great waves hitting the rocks off Maui. The interaction is driven by the percussionists, and, as they pick up momentum, Liebman's lines become arcing and prolific. When the two percussionists are playing together as a duet, the music bends along a poly-rhythmic line.

Rudolph explains in the liner notes the process undertaken during the performance: "Chi is what the Taoists describe as vital energy.... Chi animates all the frequencies of vibration, from a stone to a thought, from subatomic activity to the spiral of galaxies. It is our very own breath, blood and electricity."

The music certainly approximates Chi in every phrase, beat, and outburst. On both "Emergence" and "Whirl," a dance ensues, as Liebman spins lines on soprano sax over the bouncy rhythms. "Emergence" also features Liebman's wooden recorder while "Whirl" adds Rudolph's repeating motif on the sintir (a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute that is used by the Gnawan, who inhabit regions of North Africa).

"Flux" hops about, like a rabbit surprised by a fox. Liebman's phrases leap and bound and stutter over the terrain laid out by the percussion—a system of ruts, grooves, and ridges. As the song reaches the midway point, Liebman solos with an electronic echo that resonates as though he were atop a crest of an expansive canyon. About halfway through another tune, "Continuum," the percussionists improvise below Liebman's dit-dot and roller-coaster sound collages.

Nothing quite sets the table though for "Formless Form." Here musical space is curved and a straight line is no longer the fastest path. Instead, like light reflecting off a pond, the music seems to refract and diffuse in mysterious and engaging ways.

If vital energy is the goal, Chi certainly achieves it. Gorgeously engineered, the album provides a record of one night's stunning discoveries of sound, space and time.

Track Listing

Becoming; Flux; Continuum; Formless Form; Emergence; Whirl.

Personnel

Dave Liebman
saxophone, soprano

Dave Liebman: tenor saxophone, piano, wooden recorder; Adam Rudolph: handrumset (kongos, djembe, tarija), piano (1), sintir, multi-phonic vocal, percussion, electronic processing; Hamid Drake: drumset, vocal, frame drum.

Album information

Title: Chi | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: RareNoiseRecords

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

What Was Happening
Bobby Wellins Quartet
Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
A New Beat
Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y

Popular

Eagle's Point
Chris Potter
Light Streams
John Donegan - The Irish Sextet

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.