Bird’s Eye (Pyroclastic Records, 2024)
// JAZZIZ - Editors’ Choice Playlist (listen)
“New York based saxophonist and composer Leon draws on Afro-Cuban and Korean influences to create a vivid new sound…. Their music can be both stately and buoyant, intricate and sly….Inspired.” —The Wire (full review)
“…a program of ten compositions that almost inaugurate their own genre.” —NYC Jazz Record (full review)
“…an album that sounds unlike anything else.” —PostGenre (full review/ interview)
“The music on Bird's Eye doesn't have the percussive drive one might expect from an amalgam with Afro-Cuban roots although the clave is definitely in evidence at times…Instead, their sound is light and spacious, almost like a conversation where you can hear the participants listening and considering their response.”—The Stash Dauber (full review)
“I felt in this album…a certain dry sense of humor: not that Leon doesn’t take what he does seriously, but that he is truly ‘playing’ with the music in the classic sense of the word.”—The Art Music Lounge (full review)
“…restraint and the pursuit of beauty triumph over the temptation to shock. The result is beautiful, enchanting music that is definitely worth listening to.”— Jazz-Fun (full review)
“The instrumentation, inter-play of musicianship and quality of the recording itself stand alone. In a world of so much similarity, this one is quite an achievement.”— Bandcamp fan reviews (full review)
“And we're on notice of three new talents to watch for.”—The Stash Dauber (full review)
“Cuban-American alto saxophonist David Leon not only arrives fully-formed on his first record, but his extroversion feels like a natural part of his musical personality, spiking his agile post-bop with nifty conceptual brio that never gets in the way of his desire to communicate.” —The Quietus Complete Communion (full review)
“Aire de Agua is a splendid debut from a young saxophone player who, starting with the right foot, promises to make a name for himself in the creative jazz scene.” —JazzTrail (full review)
“Leon draws inspiration from varied sources, including visual art and contemporary dance, and indeed the band at times suggests the sonic equivalent of four dancers moving in separate but related orbits: oblique ensembles maybe, but with an undeniable and affecting human dimension. Is there a stronger contender for debut of the year?” —NYC Jazz Record (full review)
“The young saxophonist and composer David Leon makes quite an impression on this debut album” —Take Effect (full review)
“…a very remarkable and promising first statement by David Leon and his impressive quartet.” —Vital Weekly (full review)
“[Leon] has assembled a group of his peers who thoroughly inhabit this diverse set of eight charts, as they interweave, step forward, support and solo, finding the space to express themselves as an integral part of the written material.” —All About Jazz (full review)
Current Obsession Vol. 1 (self-released, 2019)
“This trio deliberately avoids any clear narrative,… but succeeds to provide its own rationale.”—salt peanuts* (full review)
“[Leon] is the master of his art – he manages to combine together expressive and vital saxophone’s melodies, hot thrills, sharp aggressive growls, urgent and striking riffs, passionate, roaring and wild blow outs, impressive rising culminations or silent pauses, relaxing meditative pieces or dreamy lullabies. Strange sounds, shrieky hollowing piccolo, special effects, all kinds of ornaments and expressions make his music bright, driving and filled with original ideas.” —Avant Scena (full review)
Interviews:
March 1, 2024 - PostGenre - Moving By Breath: A Conversation with David Leon on ‘Bird’s Eye’
November 1, 2020 - Jazz & Blues Florida November 2020 Issue (Cover Feature) - David Leon: Miami to NYC
March 18, 2019 - Jazz Speaks - Different Shapes: David Leon Speaks
August 1, 2017 - WLRN - Young Miami Jazz Saxophonist Makes it to Newport Jazz Fest
August 3, 2017 - ASCAP - ‘David Leon’s New Thing at Newport’
Live:
“[Leon] played a role in the rhythmic complexity, bristling with kinetic force…[and] making all manner of bird-like and gutteral animalistic sounds” — Jazz Right Now (full review)
“[Bird’s Eye] maintained an easy and fluid connection when the music seemed to go off the rails. Lesley Mok on percussion effortlessly augmented Leon’s flute and saxophone solos and punctuated the texture without overpowering DoYeon Kim, who shredded so hard on the kayageum that she had to actually reassemble her instrument before the set was over.” —I Care If You Listen (full review)
