Dave Liebman is one of jazz’s great instrumentalists. He is also one of jazz great clinicians, educators and inspirational figures. One of the most travelled jazz musicians on the planet – perhaps the most travelled jazz musician – he has left in his wake a bewildering array of albums charting local encounters, like postcards from abroad, where his playing is the main life force and catalysing agent. He never gives less than his all to music, so his discography is differentiated by the relative merits of his accompanists. These two projects, tentatively linked by an album dedicated to the Beatles’ music and an album comprising music from pop culture in the period leading up to the Beatles’ breakthrough (and including one Beatles track ‘Eleanor Rigby’) are with Liebman’s own, hand-picked ensembles. They are of course good, the dreaded tenor sax-with-bass-drums accompaniment avoiding the monotony of tone inherent in such combinations by whistling up John Ruocco with Liebman playing piano on two tracks. There is some clever re-imagining of familiar Beatles fare here, while the sassy Lineage, with the larger ensemble, has its moments as they reinvent pieces like ‘Wipeout’, ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ and ‘Love Me Tender’. But overall none tell us anything more about Liebman than we knew before; yes, he still has plenty to say as an artist, the problem seems to be finding new ways to do what he already does very well.