By Jeff Wilson
Enquirer contributor

Whoever dubbed last weekend "Autumn in New York" at the Blue Wisp perfectly described Friday night's performance by Dave Liebman.

Brooklyn born, Mr. Liebman led a quartet that evoked the loft jazz that blossomed in New York during the 1970s, when artists such as Sam Rivers and David Murray played music much freer than traditional bebop. Stretching the limits of tonality, these musicians improvised in a style that was too edgy for most New York clubs and ended up creating a scene of their own.

True to the spirit of free jazz, each piece of Mr. Liebman's nine-song, 31/2-hour set lasted at least 15 minutes. Sticking to original compositions during the first set, the quartet mixed dirge-like passages with off-kilter funk, ethereal melodies and smatterings of bebop, often in the same song. Wandering all over the jazz map, the musicians avoided the predictable at every turn but ran the risk of sounding coy. It helped that Marko Marcinko, an inventive drummer who generated an endless supply of rhythms, was free-spirited but primal, constantly pushing the soloists to new heights.

Between sets, a mostly young crowd walked around and saw how lucky the Blue Wisp was to get kicked out of its previous space. Exposed heating ducts give the new space an industrial feel, and the tall windows wrapping around the club lend an aura of nightlife so palpable passersby on the street will get sucked in by the ambiance. Seldom have local audiences had a chance to hear such adventurous jazz, and some people must have wondered what the quartet would sound like if it played something they actually recognized.

The answer came during the second set. After dedicating "On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)" to Robert Goulet, Mr. Liebman launched into a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of the title song of a famous Broadway musical in which Mr. Goulet performed. During those rare moments that they actually surfaced, lyrical and faintly recognizable snippets of the song crashed head-on into ominous bass lines, demonic guitar riffs and dissonant outbursts on the tenor saxophone. Had Mr. Goulet wandered in during the performance, he might never have recovered.

The evening concluded with "India," composed by John Coltrane. Soloing over a droning bass line, sitar-like guitar playing and explosive drumming, Mr. Liebman played a passionate solo that climaxed with honks, squeals and sheets of sound. No irony here, just a fiery tribute to an artist Mr. Liebman happened to catch at Birdland in 1961, changing his life as well as the history of jazz.