Search - Liberty Ellman :: Ophiuchus Butterfly

	Liberty Ellman Ophiuchus Butterfly Genres: Jazz, Pop, R&B "A terrific guitarist, Ellman plays with a rhythmic charge and a decisive touch." - Gary Giddins, VILLAGE VOICE "Ellman's ballads are special, exotic things." - NEW YORK TIMES "With his new CD...Liberty Ellman emerges ... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Liberty Ellman
Title: Ophiuchus Butterfly
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Pi Recordings
Original Release Date: 1/1/2006
Re-Release Date: 5/9/2006
Genres: Jazz, Pop, R&B
Styles: Modern Postbebop, Bebop, Funk
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 808713001921

Synopsis

Album Description

"A terrific guitarist, Ellman plays with a rhythmic charge and a decisive touch." - Gary Giddins, VILLAGE VOICE "Ellman's ballads are special, exotic things." - NEW YORK TIMES "With his new CD...Liberty Ellman emerges as one of the most intriguing...guitarists on the New York scene today." - Bill Milkowski, JAZZTIMES Liberty Ellman's Ophiuchus Butterfly is the culmination of three years of development and study as both a composer & listener, and the unique sound & fresh approach are the by-products of Ellman's influences and tastes. All of this is to say that Ophiuchus Butterfly is an album unlike any other that will come out this year - a concept in writing, execution and production that melds modern compositions and improvisational performance with the form and production of some of today's more popular instrumental music. Taken as a whole, Ophiuchus Butterfly is a monumental step forward for a generation striving to bring its influences to bear on an art form defined by the recordings of past generations. The album opens with the title track, which features one of Ellman's few solo statements. Tasteful and understated, Ellman's playing is centered in his original rhythmic phrasing, often surprising intervallic choices and melodic jumps. The CD then moves to "Aestivation," a haunting and beautiful piece, and makes a great leap forward to the minimalist, electro/acoustic and aurally captivating "Snow Lips," a major shift in the landscape that fits so seamlessly it actually winds up defining the CD's overall direction. Ophiuchus Butterfly is a beautiful statement from an artist trying to bridge the gap between creative, challenging and accessible jazz. It is a statement of what today's music sounds like when all of its freshness and new possibilities breath life into an art form all-too-often constrained by memories of times gone by.

CD Reviews

Chaotic, spasmotic jazz of the highest accomplishment

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 05/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's not easy to make music like this, even if you're an iconoclast and already inclined in an out direction. Or, rather, I should say, it's not that hard to make it; it's just hard to make it work.

My feeling is that you've got to spend some really long amount of time laboring in the fields of (on the surface) stupid out jazz, connected up with some genuine weirdos like Steve Lehman (alto sax) and Gerald Cleaver (drums), find an adventurous label (like PI Recordings), come up with some new thang, and, luckily, figure out a way to convince even these adventurous label execs that you're the REAL DEAL. More power to whomever can pull off this unlikely scenario.

Liberty Ellman not only pulls it off, he hits a home run (and I doubt it's a Barry Bonds-enhanced four-bagger!). How does this work?

Luck. Smarts. Genius. And some really simpatico bandmates.

It probably doesn't hurt to contextualize it in relation to some New Age crap like Ophiuchus Butterfly (huh?). It sounds good, I'll give him that. Maybe a little pretensious, but connecting up with all the right socio-environmental concerns, no?

But you know what? It ain't happenin' if the music's missin' from the grooves. Which it certainly isn't. This is smart, sophisticated, post-modern New Music/jazz of the highest order. These guys (especially the leader) have absorbed, transmuted, and reconfigured the major jazz innovators of the 20th century: Monk, Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Coleman (Ornette, Anthony, and Steve), Tapscott, and Shipp to come up with something completely new and compelling: whacked out marginal jazz with huge presence, attractive rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic structures, and playing of the absolute first magnitude.

This is edgy, jittery, all-over-the-map, way happening jazzy music that you're not likely to encounter elsewhere. Me, I'm a huge fan. I could listen to this stuff all day long (and I do). You should at least check it out. It'll open your ears."