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Liberty Ellman

Pi Recordings is proud to release Tactiles, the second album by Liberty Ellman, one of New York's most imaginative and unorthodox guitarist/composers. Tactiles follows up the critically acclaimed Orthodoxy, which Ellman released in 1998 on his own Red Giant label. Featuring Mark Shim on tenor saxophone, Stephan Crump on bass, and Eric Harland on drums, Tactiles documents sounds and concepts that have been gestating since Ellman returned to his native New York from the Bay Area in 1998.

Tactiles is Ellman's second appearance on Seth Rosner's innovative Pi label - the first being Up Popped the Two Lips by Henry Threadgill's acoustic band ZOOID. With Tactiles, Ellman joins such esteemed innovators as Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, and Wadada Leo Smith as a Pi recording artist.

Since relocating to New York, Ellman has performed extensively with his own trio and quartet, with Crump and Shim as charter members. He has also gained wide-ranging experience as a sideman with some of jazz's most adventurous and least categorizable thinkers, including Greg Osby, Henry Threadgill, Steven Bernstein, and Lawrence "Butch" Morris. On Tactiles we feel the pull of these diverse influences in Ellman's spiky, unpredictable lines, his arid and suggestive harmonies, and his complex yet infectious rhythms. We also hear Osby's distinctive alto sax on three tracks: the majestic ballad "Temporary Aid," the midtempo funk riddle "How Many Texts," and the furiously swinging "Ultraviolet."

Ellman employs a clean, unadorned sound on Tactiles, achieving rich timbral contrasts and an alluring sonic blend with Mark Shim's weighty, gruff tenor sax. Interestingly, both Ellman and Shim make extensive use of the lower registers of their respective instruments. "I like a warm, clear sound," says Ellman, "one that allows you to hear the quality of the strings and the wood of the instrument, but not too pristine. I still prefer to hear the grit of a vintage tube amp."

Crump and Harland flourish within Ellman's intricate rhythmic frameworks on pieces such as "Excavation," "Helios," and "Post Approval." In these workouts, Ellman crafts a dense polyrhythmic language and focuses the heated interaction with his undulating single-note lines and clich�-�ree chording. "With this record," Ellman explains, "I wanted to be as direct as possible, making music that has a visceral, almost physical quality. Hence the title, Tactiles."

Born in London in 1971, Ellman lived his earliest years in New York but spent his adolescence and most of his 20s in the Bay Area, emerging with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from the California State University at Sonoma. During his West Coast stint Ellman formed deep, lasting relationships with the celebrated pianist Vijay Iyer, the fiery altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa, and a close-knit circle of other like-minded players, most of whom have since moved to New York as well. Along the way Ellman founded Red Giant Records and released his debut recording, Orthodoxy, along with well-received albums by Iyer (Panoptic Modes, Architextures), Mahanthappa (Black Water), and other colleagues.

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Album Review

Liberty Ellman: Last Desert

Read "Last Desert" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Guitarist Liberty Ellman has been doing valuable work in recent years as a sideman for musicians such as Henry Threadgill, Stephan Crump and Myra Melford. Once in a while he also puts out his own music as a leader. Inspired by a marathon race that takes place in Antarctica, the music on this disc is a constantly moving bundle of sounds with some resemblance to Threadgill's recent work in its use of tuba and its overall jangling ensemble ...

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Album Review

Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd: InWhatStrumentals

Read "InWhatStrumentals" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


In 2003 Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd released In What Language?, a hybrid jazz/hip hop response to post-9/11 American paranoia. Inspired by many related injustices, the inflection point was the extended detention, handcuffing and humiliation of a prominent Iranian filmmaker passing through JFK International Airport. Seventeen years later America was mired in multiple unprecedented crises, giving cause to repurpose that album. Iyer and Ladd had the instrumental masters from 2003, and release them here as InWhatStrumentals: Music from In What ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Clean Feed’s Latest Releases

Read "Clean Feed’s Latest Releases" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


This episode digs into a number of fine new releases from Clean Feed Records. You'll hear tracks from the Simon Nabatov Quintet, the Scandinavian group Inland Empire (featuring Kris Davis), legendary singer Patty Waters, pianist Kaja Draksler, and the hard-nosed Luis Lopes Humanization Quartet (featuring saxophonist Rodrigo Amado). Also new is the Itaca 4et, a joint Canadian-Italian project, young saxophonist Ori Jacobson's debut, pianist James Carney and guitarist Liberty Ellman's latest with an outstanding band in tow. There's lots more ...

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Album Review

Liberty Ellman: Last Desert

Read "Last Desert" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Guitarist Liberty Ellman doesn't release many albums as a leader. Last Desert is only his fifth in more than twenty years, and fourth for Pi Recordings, following 2015's Radiate. But that doesn't mean he isn't a busy artist. He can be heard with JD Allen, Jason Robinson, Myra Melford's Snowy Egret, Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio and, of course, Henry Threadgill's Zooid. He also produces music, mixes and masters recordings. Those last three crafts may explain why his recordings as a ...

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Live Review

Liberty Ellman Trio at Crescent Arts Centre

Read "Liberty Ellman Trio at Crescent Arts Centre" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Liberty Ellman Trio Crescent Arts Centre jny:Belfast, N. Ireland April 13, 2018 Liberty Ellman was short his pedals for this Moving On Music gig at Crescent Arts Centre--lost somewhere in transit--but he certainly wasn't short of musical ideas during a constantly engaging ninety-minute set. With four releases in twenty years Ellman maybe isn't the most prolific of leaders yet this only tells part of the story, for the New York-based guitarist--a cornerstone of ...

Album Review

Liberty Ellman: Radiate

Read "Radiate" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


Ascoltando Radiate si coglie immediatamente la comunanza linguistica che stringe quel manipolo di musicisti abituati ad incidere per la PI, forse la migliore etichetta odierna di jazz contemporaneo. Si percepiscono i medesimi studi giovanili, i medesimi sviluppi creativi, quella telepatia esecutiva che rende interessante una performance jazzistica. Anche quando la prima impressione è quella di una musica derivativa. Sì perchè, assodato che Liberty Ellman è un signor musicista, chitarrista intelligente e compositore scaltro, non ...

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Album Review

Liberty Ellman: Radiate

Read "Radiate" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Guitarist Liberty Ellman works at the crossroads of intellectual inquisitiveness and rabid expressionism. That's been evident both in his own small but impressive discography and in his musical travels with Henry Threadgill's Zooid over the past fifteen years. On Radiate--Ellman's first album in nine years, third on the Pi Recordings imprint--those two roads quickly meet. The album-opening “Supercell" proves to be a deep-grooving masterpiece that plays unification and disconnection against each other to create something magical. Damion ...

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Performance / Tour

Michele Rosewoman, Liberty Ellman, and Tyshawn Sorey Perform at Roulette, April 10

Michele Rosewoman, Liberty Ellman, and Tyshawn Sorey Perform at Roulette, April 10

Source: All About Jazz

On Saturday, April 10, 2010 at Roulette in New York City, pianist, composer, and bandleader Michele Rosewoman and two of the most creative and multi-dimensional young artists of our time, Liberty Ellman and Tyshawn Sorey, collaboratively explore sound textures and nuances of time and space through their combined musical vision.

For more information on Michele, visit her website at www.michelerosewoman.com

Concert Information

Saturday, April 10 at 8:30 p.m. Michele Rosewoman - Time in Textures: A Collaborative Experiment with ...

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Performance / Tour

Les Paul (Mon) Mingus Big Band (Tues) Vince Giordano (Wed) Jimmy Scott Feb. 22-25 (Late Nite Fri) Jonathan Kreisberg (Late Nite Sat) Liberty Ellman at the Iridium Jazz Club

Les Paul (Mon) Mingus Big Band (Tues) Vince Giordano (Wed) Jimmy Scott Feb. 22-25  (Late Nite Fri) Jonathan Kreisberg (Late Nite Sat) Liberty Ellman at the Iridium Jazz Club

Source: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services

IRIDIUM JAZZ CLUB 1650 BROADWAY (Corner of 51st) NEW YORK, NY 10023 RESERVATIONS: 212-582-2121 8:30 & 10:30PM, Fri. & Sat. 3rd Sets AT MIDNIGHT Note: Set Times for Les Paul Remain at 8 & 10PM EVERY MONDAY LES PAUL AND HIS TRIO JOHN COLIANNI - PIANO - LOU PALLO - GUITAR, NICKI PARROTT - BASS Note: Set Times for Les Paul Remain at 8 & 10PM Mingus Big ...

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Recording

Liberty Ellman Releases "Ophiuchus Butterfly" on Pi Recordings

Liberty Ellman Releases "Ophiuchus Butterfly" on Pi Recordings

Source: All About Jazz

Street Date: May, 9, 2006

Guitarist/composer Liberty Ellman's second Pi recording as a leader, Ophiuchus Butterfly, is an initially striking and ultimately deeply satisfying set chronicling six musicians, ten pieces and one ambitious, personal and utterly mature sensibility. Ellman's guitar ability and style are undeniable here, but this isn't a “guitar" album.

“I've decided that the majority of my work will be writing my own music and creating albums," Ellman explains. “I'm interested in the idea of creating an album ...

138

Performance / Tour

Liberty Ellman Quartet at the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia

Liberty Ellman Quartet  at the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia

Source: All About Jazz


Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Resonant Bodies

Meta Records
2021

buy

Last Desert

Pi Recordings
2020

buy

InWhatStrumentals

Pi Recordings
2020

buy

Radiate

Pi Recordings
2015

buy

Reclamation

Sunnyside Records
2011

buy

Ophiuchus Butterfly

Pi Recordings
2006

buy

Parallax

From: Resonant Bodies
By Liberty Ellman

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