"Malita-Malika" by Carol Liebowitz & Birgitta Flick (LEO RECORDS 2018)

Carol Liebowitz

Birgitta Flick

MALITA-MALIKA 

New Release

Leo Records

With this duo's first CD, the New York based pianist and singer Carol Liebowitz and Berlin based tenor saxophonist Birgitta Flick create an extraordinary soundscape  —  where freedom of expression connects with an intense lyricism in original compositions, spontaneous improvisations, and inspired explorations into the Great American songbook. Whether it is a spontaneous free improvisation or a standard that dates back nearly a century — to them it's all one: they are guided by the spirit and the intuition of the very moment the music comes into being. A continuity of feeling and inspiration, each time anew.

Photo © Kate Koenig

Carol Liebowitz, piano, voice

Birgitta Flick, tenor saxophone

1. Moon

2. Portrait 

3. Visions

4. Malita-Malika (for Johanna)

   (Birgitta Flick, GEMA)

5. Hummingbird

6. Marionette/September in the Rain*

    Marionette (Billy Bauer); September in the Rain (Harry Warren & Al Dubin)

7. Jasmine

8. You Don’t Know What Love Is*

    (Gene De Paul & Don Raye)

9. Sehnsucht

10. Crossed Lines

11. Reflections

All tracks by Carol Liebowitz and Birgitta Flick (GEMA), except where noted. 

Published by Alissa Publishing / PRS

Recorded November 4 & 6, 2017 by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY

Mixed by Brian Montgomery

Mastered by Jim Clouse, Park West Studios, Bklyn, NY

Photography by Kate Koenig

Produced by Birgitta Flick, Carol Liebowitz & Leo Feigin

Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe

www.carolliebowitz.com

birgittaflick.com

Carol Liebowitz, piano/voice

Pianist Carol Liebowitz brings a uniquely expressive and personal sound to the jazz and free improvisation scene. After focusing on classical repertoire at the High School of Performing Arts and NYU, her musical direction turned to improvisation and she began studying with Connie Crothers. Other influential teachers have included Sal Mosca, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan. She has performed in Europe and throughout the New York City metropolitan area in venues such as Roulette, The Stone, Cornelia Street Cafe, IBeam, The Firehouse Space, Arts for Art, Spectrum, and Birdland. In addition to frequent solo concert appearances, Carol has worked in various groups with musicians including Tom Blancarte, Adam Caine, Daniel Carter, Claire de Brunner, Maryanne de Prophetis, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano, Andy Fite, Birgitta Flick, Ratzo Harris, Ron Horton, Louise D.E. Jensen, Adam Lane, Eva Lindal, Nick Lyons, Ryan Messina, Kevin Norton, Bill Payne, John Pietaro, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, John Wagner, Michael Wimberly, and Andrea Wolper.  

Her CD “Payne Lindal Liebowitz” on Line Art Records with clarinetist Bill Payne and violinist Eva Lindal was voted one of the Top Ten Jazz CDs in the 2015 NPR Jazz Critics Poll by Art Lange. Also on Line Art Records are “First Set” (a duo with alto saxophonist Nick Lyons), “Poetry from the Future” (To Be Continued, a quartet with Claire de Brunner, Daniel Carter, and Kevin Norton), and most recently in 2018, “Spiderwebmandala,” a duo with Bill Payne, featuring poet Mark Weber. Carol has two releases on the New Artists label: “Waves of Blue Intensities,” a duo with tenor saxophonist Bob Field, and “Time on My Hands,” a voice/guitar duo with Andy Fite.

“...three-dimensional kaleidoscopic displays.” —Mel Minter (musically speaking), melminter.com

“...chords that brim with ardent energy and hypnotic beauty.” — All About Jazz

Birgitta Flick, tenor saxophone 

Birgitta Flick is a saxophonist and composer and lives in Berlin. She studied saxophone and Jazz at the Jazz-Institut Berlin (UdK) and the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. Current projects—besides her Duo with Carol Liebowitz—are her Berlin-based quartet and the German-Swedish-Finnish band Flickstick, with whom she won the 2012 Jazz Baltica Förderpreis and released the 2nd album in January 2018. Ms. Flick’s other work includes playing in the Nico Lohmann Quintet, and in drummer Sebastian Voegler’s Stockholm-based band Fluxmaschine and the German Women’s Jazz Orchestra.

In 2011–12 her research and composition project on traditional Swedish music was sponsored by the Elsa Neumann Scholarship of the state of Berlin. The resulting suite for the Swedish singer Lina Nyberg, Silke Eberhard (bass clarinet), Nico Lohmann (alto saxophone, flute) and the Birgitta Flick Quartet was released in April 2016 by Double Moon Records. The quartet’s debut CD, “Yingying” was released in 2013 by Jazz thing Next Generation. In autumn 2018 the new CD “Color Studies” will be published by Double Moon Records/Challenge, supported by the Initiative Musik gGmbH. Further CD productions include those with the Nico Lohmann quintet, Esther Kaiser and Z’lil schel bet Haskala, amongst others. 

Her concert tours have taken her to several European countries, the USA and the Middle East, and in winter 2014–15, to New York for a three month stay including private studies with Connie Crothers. Festival concert appearances include XJazz Berlin, Elbjazz in Hamburg, JazzBaltica, Jazzwoche Burghausen, Jazzahead German Jazz Meeting and Cairo Jazz Festival. Since 2013 Birgitta also contributes to the monthly Psalmton Jazz Pop Services at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche in Berlin—both as a performer, composer and coordinator. Since 2015 she also serves as the artistic director of the summer concert series “InSpirit“ at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis- Kirche.

In 2017 she received a scholarship of the City of Berlin to realize a new improvisation project and the CD recording for “Malita-Malika" together with Carol Liebowitz. 

“An excellent tenor-saxophonist based in Berlin, Birgitta Flick has an original sound on her horn, not sounding like any of her historical predecessors.” —Scott Yanow

“The large scale of Flick’s music is testimony to her rich orchestral experience, and this album first of all surprises the listener with her outstanding talent as a composer.” —Kayo Fushiya, JazzTokyo

Contact

Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services

Ph: 845-986-1677 / jim@jazzpromoservices.com

www.jazzpromoservices.com

"Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

Carol Liebowitz / Bill Payne - Spiderwebmandala (LINE ART RECORDS 2018)

Clarinetist Bill Payne and pianist Carol Liebowitz have been playing together since 2010. Their first release from 2015, Payne Lindal Liebowitz, a trio with violinist Eva Lindal, has been widely praised for its originality, and mix of lyricism and intensity. Bill Payne is “a clarinet player of immense talent and clear distinction” (Cadence). The CD is defined by “high caliber musicianship and intelligent, electrifying artistry” . . . Liebowitz displays a “vibrant and sonorous pianism” with “chords that brim with ardent energy and hypnotic beauty” while Payne “coaxes eloquent and wistful poetry out of his clarinet” (All About Jazz). The disc was voted one of the Top Ten Jazz CDs by Art Lange (Point of Departure) in the 2015 NPR Jazz Critics Poll.

Pianist and singer Carol Liebowitz brings a uniquely expressive and personal sound to the jazz and free improvisation scene. After focusing on classical repertoire at the High School of Performing Arts and NYU, her musical direction turned to improvisation and she began studying with Connie Crothers. Other influential teachers have included Sal Mosca, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan. She has performed in Europe and throughout the New York City metropolitan area in venues such as Roulette, The Stone, Cornelia Street Cafe, ibeam, The Firehouse Space, Arts for Art, Spectrum, Galapagos and Birdland. In addition to frequent solo concert appearances, Carol has worked in various groups with musicians including Daro Behroozi, Tom Blancarte, Adam Caine, Daniel Carter, Bill Chattin, Claire de Brunner, Maryanne de Prophetis, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano, Birgitta Flick, Guillermo Gregorio, Ratzo Harris, Ron Horton, Louise D.E. Jensen, Will Jhun, KenYa Kawaguchi, Adam Lane, Eva Lindal, Nick Lyons, Adam Melville, Don Messina, Ryan Messina, Bill Payne, John Pietaro, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, John Wagner, Michael Wimberly,  Andrea Wolper, dancer Michiru Inoue and poet Mark Weber. Carol has two releases on the New Artists label: “Waves of Blue Intensities,” a duo with tenor saxophonist Bob Field, and “Time on My Hands,” a voice and guitar duo with Andy Fite. Recent recordings are on Line Art Records—First Set, a duo with alto saxophonist Nick Lyons, and Poetry from the Future, with the quartet TO BE CONTINUED (Claire de Brunner, Daniel Carter, and Kevin Norton). A duo CD with tenor saxophonist Birgitta Flick, Malita-Malika, will be released in 2018.

Bill Payne was raised in Harvey, Illinois and began playing clarinet at age 10, later studying with Don Kramer and Lewis Wyatt. He has experienced a unique life on the road with theatre companies, Broadway shows, big bands, and traveling circuses. Bill’s improvisations have received spectacular reviews noting his originality, range, beauty of sound and deep expression. He cites meeting Connie Crothers as a major turning point in his musical life, leading to their outstanding performances and recordings. Other artists he has worked with include Eva Lindal, Carol Liebowitz, poet Mark Weber, Richard Tabnik, Roger Mancuso, Kevin Norton, Bud Tristano, Cheryl Richards, Michael Vlatkovich, William Roper, Chris Garcia, and Harry Scorzo. Bill has performed at venues including The Stone, iBeam, Connie Crothers’ Loft Concert Series in Brooklyn, Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, NM, and the Center For The Arts in Eagle Rock, CA.

“Payne’s clarinet moves like a leaf buffeted by the wind…”

Ed Hazell, Point of Departure

Carol Liebowitz, piano

Bill Payne, clarinet

special guest  

Mark Weber, poetry

1. Deep Sky  5:07

2. Spiderweb Mandala Flower Explosion Poem: Drishti*  4:40

3. Desert Dance  3:57

4. Secrets  4:44

5. Tempest  2:40

6. Mixtures of Aroma in the Smoke*  4:24

7. Notes on a Dream  7:04

8. Hidden Canyon  5:39

9. Vanishing Point  4:44

*tracks 2 and 6 with Mark Weber

All tracks by Carol Liebowitz and Bill Payne, except tracks 2 and 6 by Carol Liebowitz, Bill Payne and Mark Weber

Concert produced by Tom Guralnick, Janet Simon & Mark Weber

Recorded live at Outpost Performance Space, May 5 & 6, 2016, Albuquerque, NM

Recorded by Kirk Brown; Soundboard by Andres Martinez

Mixed by Mark Weber & Kirk Brown at Oasis Sound, Edgewood, NM

CD Mastering: Jim Clouse, Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY

Cover/CD art: JB Bryan, “T’ao Ch’ien Looking South” oil on canvas (details)

Liner Notes: Marc Medwin

Design: Carol Liebowitz

www.lineartrecords.com

www.carolliebowitz.com

www.markweber.free-jazz.net

Mark Weber

Mixtures of aroma in the smoke

incense corruscating & swirls

enveloping

surrounded

It is as the doctrines suggest

much like the spirit

free and ever re-inventing itself

. . . over the bridge

and

into the forest of trees

The old roads out of the East

Gossamer wings

Solemn vow to look out for each other

The old roads out of the past. . . .

swirling and cloudy

When those at sea did not return

When a tree is cut down

When sorrow enter’d into the world

Someday I’ll bury this pencil in the garden

and ride a galloping horse into the sun

Mark Weber, November 2012

New Release "Poetry from the Future" from TO BE CONTINUED on Line Art Records

Poetry from the Future

a New Release from

TO BE CONTINUED

(Carol Liebowitz, Claire de Brunner, Daniel Carter, Kevin Norton)

Artists: TO BE CONTINUED - Carol Liebowitz (piano), Claire de Brunner (bassoon), Daniel Carter (alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinet), Kevin Norton (vibraphone, drums, percussion)

CD Title: Poetry from the Future

Label: Line Art Records (LA1003)

Artist Websites: carolliebowitz.com, morebassoonplease.com, kevinnorton.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Carter_(musician)

Release Date: August 4, 2017

UPC: 888295599023

All tracks by Carol Liebowitz, Claire de Brunner, Daniel Carter and Kevin Norton (Enduring Heart, ASCAP)

Recorded March 18, 2017 by Tom Tedesco, Tedesco Studios, NJ

CD Mastering: Jim Clouse, Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY

1. Invisible Colors  (4:21) 

2. Poetry from the Future  (1:03)

3. Every Which Way  (6:38)

4. Blue Daniel  (4:43)

5. Cascadeascope  (5:39)

6. Sonic Mirage  (4:14)

7. Beautiful Outcast  (4:35)

8. For All Times  (3:58)

9. Ringing Circles  (6:24)

10. River Run  (4:08)

Total time 45:43

A quartet with unusual instrumentation and a translucent sound, TO BE CONTINUED improvises music freely, without boundaries, in each unfolding moment. Every one of the four members has a significant history in the New York City (and international) improvised music scene.

Carol Liebowitz (piano) brings a uniquely expressive and personal sound to the jazz and free improvisation scene. After focusing on classical repertoire at the High School of Performing Arts and NYU, her musical direction turned to improvisation and she began studying with Connie Crothers. Other influential teachers have included Sal Mosca, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan. She has performed in Europe and various NYC venues such as Roulette, The Stone, Cornelia Street Cafe, IBeam, The Firehouse Space, Arts for Art, Spectrum, and Birdland. Carol has worked as a soloist, and with musicians including Adam Caine, Maryanne de Prophetis, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano, Birgitta Flick, Ratzo Harris, Ron Horton, Adam Lane, John Pietaro, and Michael Wimberly. She has 2 CDs on Line Art Records, the latest, First Set, a duo with alto saxophonist Nick Lyons, and Payne Lindal Liebowitz, a trio with clarinetist Bill Payne and violinist Eva Lindal (chosen by Art Lange as one of the Top Ten Jazz CDs in the NPR 2015 Jazz Critics Poll). Carol also has two releases on New Artists Records.

Claire de Brunner (bassoon) won a scholarship to study with the principal bassoonist of the NY Philharmonic when she was 14. After attending the High School of Music and Art, and North Carolina School of the Arts, she studied at Manhattan School of Music and played in various ensembles before venturing beyond classical music. In 1982 she became a founding member of 101 Crustaceans, an integral band of the post-punk era in NYC. She later joined Church of Betty, another seminal band at that time and has recorded CDs with each band. Venues included Knitting Factory, Pyramid, Dixon Place, CBGB, Limelight, etc. In the early 90s, she studied jazz improvisation with saxophonist Lee Konitz and pianist Connie Crothers. Prominent among her numerous collaborators are Chris Rael, Ras Moshe, Ed Pastorini, Cheryl Richards, Oren Bloedow, Ken Filiano, Blaise Siwula, Connie Crothers, Virg Dzurinko, Mara Rosenbloom and Nick Lyons. She co-produced the CD Macroscopia (2010), released on the Metier label featuring a quartet comprising New York free jazz musicians. She’s appeared at The Firehouse Space, BAMcafe, IBeam, Barbes, Scholes St. Studio, The Stone and Roulette. Her music is varied; it reflects the ongoing pursuit of her deepest passion.

Daniel Carter (alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinet) — multi-instrumentalist and writer, has performed, recorded, and/or toured with many musicians through the decades since the mid-60s, including TEST, Other Dimensions in Music, Reuben Radding, Federico Ughi, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers, Alan Silva, Ras Moshe, Jeffrey Shurdut, Sabir Mateen, David Miller, Billy Bang, Earl Freeman, Karl Berger, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, William Parker, David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, Hamiet Bluiett, Nate Wooley, Hamid Drake, Billy Bang, John Blum, Tom Bruno, Demian Richardson, David Moss, Adam Lane, D.J. Logic, LP, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, Ed Schuller, Margaret Beals, Patricia Nicholson Parker, Warren Smith, Larry Roland, Mike Wimberly, Ted Daniels, Thurston Moore, Roy Campbell, Earl Cross, Vernon Reid, Wilber Morris, Eri Yamamoto, Matt Lavelle, The No Neck Blues Band, Yo La Tengo, Raphe Malik, Okkyung Lee, Denis Charles, Steve Swell, Gunter Hampel, Alan Silva, Susie Ibarra, Butch Morris and many others. His writings appear in The Tinker: Innovative Arts and Literature Magazine, 50 Miles of Elbow Room, Dyed-in-the-Wool, Intervalsss: The Poems and Words of Musicians and many other publications. 

Kevin Norton (vibraphone, percussion) is one of the few percussionists in the jazz and improvised music scene that is a virtuoso on both the drum-set and mallet instruments (vibes, marimba, etc.). After earning his Master’s Degree (in Orchestral Percussion) from the Manhattan School of Music, Kevin began to gig around NYC: playing classical, jazz and rock, but eventually falling into what became known as the Downtown Scene, a scene that was fusing all styles into a unique and explosive hybrid musical language. He has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe with Anthony Braxton, David Krakauer, Fred Frith, James Emery, Frode Gjerstad as well as groups under his own leadership. Kevin frequently performs as a leader/solist but has also collaborated with exceptional musicians including Milt Hinton, Joëlle Léandre, John Lindberg, Tony Malaby, Dave Ballou, Connie Crothers, Scott Robinson, Nick Didkovsky, Paul Dunmall, Paul Rodgers, Marshall Allen and Henry Grimes. He can be heard on well over 100 recordings, the latest, Staten Island: All that is solid melts into air, is available on Bandcamp and features his Breakfast of Champignon(s) group.

Available from CD Baby, Amazon, iTunes

Media Contact

Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services

Ph: 845-986-1677 / jim@jazzpromoservices.com

www.jazzpromoservices.com

"Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

Carol Liebowitz / Nick Lyons - First Set (2016 LINE ART RECORDS)

New Release from

Carol Liebowitz & Nick Lyons

“First Set”

Line Art Records

Carol Liebowitz and Nick Lyons’s duo is an embodiment of go-anywhere in-the-moment improvisation. Their spontaneous lyricism, adventurous harmonic and textural palettes, and the natural ease with which their sounds merge results in a musical beauty and complexity that “expands and fills up corridors after each opened door” (Mark Weber). 

The free improvisations retain something of the swinging momentum of the tunes, and the tunes have an ever-unfolding and intrinsic form that is more commonly found in free-form playing. Tracks 1–7 are from a live concert, one of an informal series on Sundays that took place at Connie Crothers’s loft beginning January 2011, continuing into 2012.

Pianist Carol Liebowitz brings a uniquely expressive and personal sound to the jazz and free improvisation scene. 

Her recent CD, “Payne Lindal Liebowitz.” a trio with clarinetist Bill Payne and violinist Eva Lindal on Line Art Records, was chosen by Art Lange as one of the Top Ten Jazz CDs in the NPR 2015 Jazz Critics Poll. Defined by “high caliber musicianship and intelligent, electrifying artistry” (Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz), Marc Medwin in Cadence Magazine writes “Simply put, they sound like no one else. . . . The recording is superb.” After focusing on classical repertoire at the High School of Performing Arts and NYU, her musical direction turned to improvisation and she began studying with Connie Crothers. 

Other influential teachers have included Sal Mosca, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan. She has performed in Europe and throughout the New York City metropolitan area in venues such as Roulette, The Stone, Cornelia Street Cafe, ibeam, The Firehouse Space, Arts for Art, Spectrum, Galapagos and Birdland. In addition to frequent solo concert appearances, Carol has worked in various groups—from duos to sextet—with musicians including Daro Behroozi, Adam Caine, Daniel Carter, Bill Chattin, Claire de Brunner, Maryanne de Prophetis, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano, Birgitta Flick, Guillermo Gregorio, Ratzo Harris, Ron Horton, Will Jhun, KenYa Kawaguchi, Adam Lane, Eva Lindal, Nick Lyons, Adam Melville, Don Messina, Ryan Messina, Kevin Norton, Bill Payne, John Pietaro, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, John Wagner, Michael Wimberly, Andrea Wolper, and dancer Michiru Inoue. Carol also has two releases on the New Artists label: “Waves of Blue Intensities,” a duo with tenor saxophonist Bob Field, and “Time on My Hands,” a duo with Andy Fite.

Alto Saxophonist Nick Lyons has been called “one of the most important and original alto saxophonists on the improvisation scene” (Manhattan Users Guide, 2015) and “definitely a young jazzer to watch” (Time Out–NY). 

His collaborations, based around spontaneously improvised music, have included performing with guitarist Adam Caine, pianists Carol Liebowitz and Connie Crothers. Lyons leads various trios which have included drummers Roger Mancuso and John Wagner and bassists Adam Lane, Hilliard Greene, and Ratzo Harris. Of his 2009 solo performance at The Stone (a pick in Time Out–NY), Mark Weber commented on “his ability to go inside himself and find meaningful lyric inventions, curling out line upon line,” adding that the concert was “magnificent.” 

In 2015 Nick was a featured guest on WKCR’s “Out to Lunch,” performed in Berlin at clubs A-Trane and B-Flat and appeared on Cheryl Richards’s CD “If Not For You” on New Artists Records. He has been a regular performer in concert series presented by Arts for Art, the NYC fixture which produces the annual Vision Festival, most recently in Spring 2016 in a quartet with Carol Liebowitz, percussionist Andrew Drury and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter. He has recently performed in groups led by tenor saxophonist Jimmy Halperin (who cited Lyons as one of his favorite young musicians in New York City, JazzTokyo.org), Connie Crothers (The Stone), pianist Harvey Diamond (Boston area), and Aaron Johnson (Dizzy’s Club); and he has led groups with pianist Kazzrie Jaxen and bassist Ken Filiano, and pianist Virg Dzurinko, trumpeter Ryan Messina, and drummer Federico Ughi.

Artists: Carol Liebowitz, Nick Lyons 

Label: Line Art Records (LA1002) 

Artist Websites: CarolLiebowitz.com 

Release Date: January 6, 2017

UPC: 888295505161

All selections by Carol Liebowitz and Nick Lyons except Carol’s Dream and Roy’s Joy (Connie Crothers, C&C Jazz, ASCAP).

Tracks 1–7: live concert, Brooklyn, NY, May 20, 2012 (Connie Crothers, engineer);

Track 8: recorded August 10, 2007, Systems Two, Brooklyn, NY (Max Ross, engineer).

CD Mastering: Jim Clouse, Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY.

Carol Liebowitz, piano

Nick Lyons, alto saxophone

1. Carol’s Dream

2. Turquoise Echo

3. Twain Shall Meet

4. The Very Thing

5. Ephemera

6. Reverie on a Sunday Afternoon

7. Roy’s Joy

8. Another Time

www.CarolLiebowitz.com

www.lineartrecords.com

MEDIA CONTACT

JIM EIGO, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES

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Phone: 845-986-1677

Cell/text: 917-755-8960

Skype: jazzpromo

jim@jazzpromoservices.com 

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