Liberty Ellman

Guitarist / Composer Liberty Ellman has been involved in a wide range of projects over the last decade. Ellman's improvisational and interpretive flexibility has allowed him to contribute to the creative ensembles of Henry Threadgill, Greg Osby, Butch Morris, Vijay Iyer, Mat Maneri, and Rudresh Mahanthappa's and Steve Lehman's project, Dual Identity. Ellman is equally at home with many types of rhythm guitar work, working on tracks with DJ Joe Claussell of Spiritual Life, hip-hop artists Mike Ladd, Midnight Voices, and The Coup, and vocalists Ledisi, Somi, Jen Chapin and Candace Jones. Recently, Ellman played on the Groove Collective album "People, People, Music, Music," which was nominated in 2006 for a Grammy.

As a composer and bandleader, Ellman has produced 3 critically acclaimed CDs: Orthodoxy (Red Giant Records, 1998), Tactiles (Pi Recordings, 2003) and Ophiuchus Butterfly (Pi Recordings, 2006). His compositional style has been described as "At once highly controlled and recklessly inventive," and "quite original and subtle." And Ben Ratliff of the New York Times wrote: "Mr. Ellman's ballads are special, exotic things: their melodies are memorable."