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With the release of “Live at Birdland New York” the pianist-composer is celebrating his 70th birthday, and demonstrates he’s still at the top of his game alongside his congenial partner of two decades, the New York based violinist Gregor Huebner. It’s through the development of their own uniquely imaginative version of ‘third stream’, the absorption of elements of the European ‘classical’ music tradition into New York’s postbop idioms that Beirach and Huebner found so much common ground. Bweirach: “The mix of the music on the CD is very typical for us, you find classical pieces, our own compositions, a typical jazz standard and a composition by John Coltrane [“Transition”]. Each piece brings something totally new but everything is connected through improvisation.” Of his originals, one of Beirach’s most popular, a classical-influenced, hauntingly melancholic version of “Elm” is a standout piece. Beirach’s infectious latin vamp on the standard “You Don’t Know What Love Is” is associated with Chet Baker and a reminder of Beirach’s tenure in his band early on in his career. Approaching the ripe old age of 70, it’s a moment to consider Richie Beirach’s high level achievements as one of America’s greatest living modernist jazz piano stylists. Originally a sideman of both Stan Getz and the aforementioned Baker, Beirach among others has enjoyed a memorably intimate association with the saxophonist Dave Liebman since the 1970s, in bands (Quest, Lookout Farm) that included the legendary Billy Hart whose explosive presence at times on the recording eclipses entirely his 76 years on the planet. “For Richie,” Huebner explains, “these are his oldest friends, and these are the people he developed his music together.” In jazz that development doesn’t come to an end. It’s testament to the exploratory ‘young at heart’ spirit of the grand jazz masters on “Live at Birdland New York” that not for a second does anyone rest on their considerable laurels.

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