(Modern Jazz, Post-Bop, Enja Records) Quest (David Liebman, Richie Beirach, Ron McClure, Billy Hart) - Circular Dreaming (Quest plays the music of Miles' 60s) - 2012, WEB, FLAC (tracks), lossless

Miles Davis once proudly noted that Wayne Shorter became a composer in his years with the trumpeter. Shorter provided most of the repertoire for the Davis band from 1964 to 1968 and offered a new sense of harmonic and thematic openness that could seem undefined, to the point of evanescence, but was ultimately visionary and powerfully transfixing. (Davis valued these compositions so much that he named three of his albums after Wayne Shorter titles: ESP, Nefertiti and Water Babies.)
The band Quest has played its own brand of modal music since 1981, the year of its first recording. Dave Liebman, the band’s horn player, had played in the Miles Davis group in 1972. He had also worked in a band led by Elvin Jones’ who, of course, had been the drummer with John Coltrane, a member of an earlier Davis quintet and one of Liebman’s major musical influences. It’s no surprise, then, that the music of Quest is informed by the spirits of the Coltrane and Davis bands. The surprise is that Quest offers this music in new, less abstract ways.
“Prince of Darkness” (from the Miles album “Sorcerer”) is Shorter’s personal homage to Miles Davis. Quest shows us – perhaps for the first time – the true emotional depth and drama in this composition. Liebman’s sweet and smooth-as-silk soprano saxophone takes much of the static and edge out of the tune and gives it a convincing and touching ballad feeling. Richie Beirach on piano and Ron McClure on bass let the melodic fantasy flourish in their solos and the soprano leads back to the theme in a beautiful relaxed arc. It’s a performance of great passion and, somehow, utter relaxation.
“Footprints” seems to slip out of its tight and quirky theme to become faster and smarter, a rough, powerful tenor blues and drum feature. “Nefertiti” (from the album of the same name) has gone through many changes over the years. It has been played as a free jazz excursion, a mainstream standard, in a saxophone quartet and as a flute miniature! Quest now turns “Nefertiti” into a solid jazz number with some of its witty side revealed. In the Miles Davis Quintet of the 1960s, Shorter’s themes often function as springboards for the interactive happenings of the whole band. Quest makes music interactively as well but develops its music out of the spirit and feeling of the compositions as the band members see and understand them. They make sounds that are playful and humorous, strong and elegant, and the Shorter tunes thrive in this setting and grow emotionally. (Hans-Jürgen Schaal)

Dave Liebman - soprano-, tenorsax
Richie Beirach - piano
Ron McClure - bass
Billy Hart - drums