Steuart Liebig

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Steuart Liebig (* 1956 ) is an American bassist and composer of modern creative jazz and new improvisation music . He mostly plays the double bass guitar.

Live and act

Liebig grew up in Los Angeles and began playing the bass guitar as a teenager under the influence of rock and blues music of the 1960s; in high school he came into contact with jazz. In college he began his first sound experiments; between 1974 and 1976 he was part of John Beasley's band . Then, at the age of 19, he played rhythm guitar in the band of soul-jazz pianist and singer Les McCann and participated in four of his albums. In 1979 he left McCann's band to study classical double bass , music history and composition at California State University until 1983 . After graduating, he founded the fusion band BLOC with Nels Cline , played with Julius Hemphill in the JAH band with Alex Cline and Bill Frisell , but also with Michael Penn and with musicians who were engaged in freely improvised music in Los Angeles. In addition, he dealt with the composition of classical works in self-study.

After the dissolution of BLOC in 1993 he decided to concentrate on improvised music and composition; he founded the formation Quartetto Stig with the instrumentation violin, trumpet, drums and the double bass guitar he developed; with this ensemble he began to realize his compositional ideas. With the quartet he recorded three albums for Vinny Golias Nine Winds Records (1993 Hommages Obliques , 1995 Lingua Oscura and 1997 Pienso Oculto ).

He then dissolved his quartet and worked with the Stigtette formation (flute, clarinet, trombone, double bass guitar) and the ensemble The Mentones (alto saxophone, harmonica, drums, double bass guitar), which deals with the material of the American folk blues in the language of the Free Jazz , as well as a freelance trio with Vinny Golia and drummer Billy Mintz , with whom he recorded two albums for Cadence Jazz Records ( No Train , 1999; Antipodes , 2001).

In 1999 he worked with percussionists Gregg Bendian and Nels Cline ( Myriad ); In 2001 he wrote the longer composition Pomegranate for his third stream band KammerStig , influenced by Igor Stravinsky's musical formal language . On the album of the same name, musicians such as Nels Cline, Mark Dresser , Jeff Gauthier , Vinny Golia, Ellen Burr and Tom Varner played with Liebig . After 2000, albums such as The Mentones' Locustland and Nowhere Calling , Minim's Quicksilver , Stigtette's Delta and Kelpland Seranades were created in a duo with Anna Homler and the trio album On the Cups of Fire and Water with Vinny Golia and Michael Vatcher . The album Signs was created with Alex Cline and Mark O'Leary .

He has also written music for an improvising chamber ensemble, The Meninas Quartet (2005/06), the Seconda Prattica Quintet (2000–2005), for the electric jazz band Lane Ends Merge Left (1997–2005) and pieces for solo double bass guitar as well as longer works for his Ensemble Kammerstig . ( Panharmonicon ) (2005/06) for saxophone, trumpet, two keyboards, two percussionists and double bass guitar. In 2006 Liebig worked with guitarist GE Stinson and the Tee-Tot Quartet made up of Joseph Berardi (percussion), Dan Clucas (cornet) and Scot Ray (Dobro). In 2008 the album Always Outnumbered by the Tee-Tot Quartet was released, which is a mixture of blues, rock 'n' roll, bop, swing and free jazz with musical role models such as Charles Mingus , Robert Johnson , Louis Armstrong , Muddy Waters or Skip James argues.

In 2005 he was named as a bass player in Down Beat- Poll, in 2008 he was nominated for the Alpert Award in the Arts .

swell
personal data
SURNAME Liebig, Steuart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH 1956