Dave Liebman / David Binney / Donny McCaslin / Samuel Blais: Four Visions Saxophone Quartet
Sunnyside Records

With the Four Visions Saxophone Quartet, Dave Liebman, David Binney, Donny McCaslin, and Samuel Blais perpetuate the group concept associated with outfits such as Rova, Prism, and the World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ). Of the three, Four Visions has more in common with the latter: whereas Rova and Prism cast wide nets that encompass jazz, classical, and World music genres, the WSQ's recordings focus on jazz, with blues and gospel also central to the mix. Each ensemble offers a woodwinds-based variation on the string quartet, a key difference being the role improvising plays in the saxophone unit; the string quartet, by comparison, generally gives expression to fully notated writing. That said, formal structures do act as foundations for the material performed by the saxophone quartets and thus account for the chamber-like dimension that's as fundamental to the presentation as soloing.

While Four Visions is the group's debut recording, the quartet formed years ago. The seed was planted when Blais met Dave Liebman at the Manhattan School of Music. The two eventually played and toured together, during which time the one-time Miles Davis sideman learned of the younger saxophonist's desire to start a saxophone quartet. A 2011 brainstorming session about prospective partners brought tenor player Donny McCaslin and altoist David Binney into the fold to complement Blais's baritone and Liebman's soprano. Christened the Four Visions Saxophone Quartet, the group toured in 2012 and over time all four members wrote works for the group. Reconvening for a handful of rehearsals in 2015, the four entered Red Rock Recording Studio, near Liebman's home in Pennsylvania, to lay down the seventy-minute album's ten tunes.

From start to finish, the saxophonists demonstrate remarkable technical proficiency. Unison lines are voiced with precision, dynamics are handled astutely, and chorale-like sections are executed with seeming ease. Flubs might be missed when one occurs within a large, raucous ensemble; any such misstep would be glaring in this chamber context, but none noticeably appear. The four never sound more in sync than during Binney's “Empty Sunbeams,” where syncopated accents demand unison playing that's surgically precise, and all are consummate soloists (check out McCaslin's dizzying turn on “Legions”). Throughout the release, all play with assurance and meet the technical challenges the quartet configuration presents. One of the primary pleasures it affords is the discernible contrast between the horns. When they band together, the result is texturally rich (see Blais's sumptuous ballad “Et Voit le Jour”), yet when they separate, it's easy to identify who's playing what.

Though jazz is the focus, classic music does seep into the recording via Blais's “Blaizza,” which draws for inspiration from composer Eugène Bozza's Andante & Scherzo in its luscious harmonic writing and the captivating back-and-forth indulged in by the horns; a blues feel also emerges during the tune's second half when Liebman briefly wails over a grooving backdrop. In one of the album's more ambitious pieces, his “In Bach's Studio” segues between sultry, through-composed ensemble passages and unaccompanied solo spots for sixteen engaging minutes.

November 2019