Broad shouldered and low to the ground, he stands hunched over a microphone, glowering out at the audience like a creature from mythology. As he plays, his face contorts with effort and his body seems physically to strain against some invisible force, as if a supreme effort is needed to push each flurry of notes out the bell of his straight soprano horn. Kenny G it ain't.

And then there's the sound. Few sounds in contemporary music are as instantly recognisable as Liebman's. Although he is the first to point out his debt to John Coltrane, Liebman's mature sound is unique, a very personal repertoire of dark, chromatic scales and melodies, played with a ferocious intensity and an elastic sense of time that seems to break free from the groove without ever losing its momentum.

Irish audiences over the last 20 years have been fortunate enough to get to know this sound well.

Drawn here first to perform and to teach at Newpark Music Centre, and now increasingly by the friendships that he has forged with Irish musicians, Liebman has been a vital and dynamic force in the development of Irish jazz, and a musical godfather to a new generation of players. It is only right, therefore, as he turns 60, that there should be a special week planned in Dublin to celebrate his achievements as a musician, and in turn to give the saxophonist a chance to share with his Irish audience some of his insights after a lifetime of deep engagement with jazz, particularly with the music of Coltrane.

Born in Brooklyn in 1946, Liebman began playing the saxophone at 12 years old, and with Manhattan on his doorstep, he had the sort of education that most jazz musicians dream of. Not that Liebman sees it that way. For him, education was the thing that was missing for jazz musicians of his generation.

"It's different now. There are models, schools, a plan you can follow to guide you. Then there was nothing. The older musicians were sarcastic or friendly, helpful or not, depending on their personality and moods, but there was little formal instruction."

Nevertheless, by his mid teens, he was already a regular visitor to the "peanut galleries" of the jazz clubs around Manhattan, where underage patrons were allowed to sit to hear the music.

The mid to late '60s in New York jazz was a period of great flux, with Miles Davis deconstructing bebop and then abandoning it altogether, and Ornette Coleman pioneering the free revolution. Above all, it was the final flowering of John Coltrane and the last chance to hear him in person.

It was one night in the famous Birdland club that Liebman first witnessed Coltrane's celebrated quartet with Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison. It was to be a life-changing experience, and now 40 years later, Liebman is still one of the principle inheritors of the tradition of visceral, emotionally intense saxophone playing associated with Coltrane.

"It was like any Saturday night in any club anywhere, noisy and full of distractions. Bill Evans' trio was playing like they were in someone's living room, with their heads down, nobody paying any attention to them. Then Coltrane came on. They started playing and it was like a storm."

That was the beginning of what has become a life's work. Liebman soon came to revere Coltrane, who was dead by 1967, and in particular to study the later period of the great saxophonist's career, an area into which few others have followed. He soon moved to Manhattan and became a central figure in the "loft" scene that was then developing downtown. He shared a building with pianist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland, among others, and talks about it as a place where they could "blow all night".

Then came what he calls his apprenticeship, "a four-year stint with Coltrane's drummer Elvin Jones, culminating in two years on the road with Miles Davis.

"It was the big time, " says Liebman, remembering his time with Davis. "Major gigs, on the road with Miles Davis. It was him affecting me personally for better or worse. I really listened and watched everything Miles did. I saw how he thought about music.

Not which chord, which scale, but how he dipped in and out. I was coming out of Coltrane: notes, notes, a lot of notes. Here was a guy who stopped, played rhythmically, left an amazing amount of space even in this rock and roll, one-chord vamp thing we were doing. It was the complete opposite for me and it affected my playing dramatically."

Liebman has been leading his own groups for 30 years now, one of the few international jazz musicians who can tour and record at will, in demand as a soloist and revered by younger generations for his individuality and his passion. But unlike many of his peers, Liebman has also devoted himself to jazz education.

"I really do feel a commitment to the education thing, I must say. I was getting adrift in the early '80s.

I felt like I'd already been around the world. I'd been a bandleader, I'd played with Miles, I had awards, and I was only 35 years old. I'm looking at the Jimmy Heaths of the world, saying 'How do they keep themselves interested?' I looked into the Peace Corps, and I thought about law school. But through my first teaching experiences with Jamey Aebersold and then in Banff with Dave Holland, I started seeing a purpose above the music. It seemed to me I could be most effective in using the music as a vehicle to inspire young people to understand its depth, value and beauty, all the positive things we know about it that would make them a better person."

Liebman remains one of the most inspiring pedagogues in jazz, famed for his generosity, not to mention his bluntness. Since he first came to Ireland in 1985 to teach at Newpark Music Centre, he has inspired successive generations of Irish musicians, and there are many on the scene today . . .

whether they be musicians, promoters or even journalists . . . who got that vital injection of energy (and a reality check) at a Liebman masterclass.

"To do something for the betterment of the world, on a big or small level is very important. If I can make a kid feel better about doing something, so that instead of having a gun in his hand, he'll have a saxophone . . . I say 'Go for it!'" 'Lieb . . . An Appreciation' runs from 22 to 25 August at various venues around the city, and includes Liebman's long-standing group the Dublin Project (JJ Smyths, 22) featuring Mike Nielsen & Michael Buckley;

Coltrane Remembered featuring a group of younger generation Dublin musicians with Liebman as leader and soloist (Meeting House Square, 23); a public lecture entitled Coltrane Reflected (Goethe Institute, 24), and Head, Hand, Heart, the premiere of a new composition by Ronan Guilfoyle, dedicated to his friend and mentor, and featuring an international group including drummer Tom Rainey (Crawdaddy, 25).