Carol Liebowitz, piano
Bill Payne, clarinet

special guest
Mark Weber, poetry

REVIEW OF SPIDERWEBMANDALA

Sharing their free-form jazz stylings in tandem on and off since first pairing in 2010, pianist Carol Liebowitz and clarinetist Bill Payne joined forces with violinist Eva Lindal in 2015 for their widely acclaimed debut recording Payne Lindal Liebowitz.

While technically a follow-up, Liebowitz and Payne’s provocatively titled Spiderwebmandala marks their debut recording as a duo. Quite expectedly, the live presentation by the duo at the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque NM is a master class in free jazz and spontaneous improvisation — with hints towards classical composers like Anton Webern, known for being an exponent of atonality and twelve-tone technique. Enhancing the shifting moods and intense rhythmic variations of the presentation are two pieces featuring the thoughtful spoken-word poetry of Mark Weber.

—Jonathan Widran, jwvibe.com
July 18, 2018