The weather may be cold outside but Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown, heats things up inside the Rodale Community Room with the latest installment of the monthly “Jazz Upstairs” series.

The first showcase of 2016 sets the bar high with National Endowment of the Arts “Jazz Master” saxophonist Dave Liebman and his group Expansions, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 15.

“This is my fourth or fifth year there. It’s become like a regular gig, which is nice,” says Liebman in a phone interview.

“I’ve been able to present projects to the folks. We did some [Antônio Carlos] Jobim at one point. I certainly did [John] Coltrane and I’m sure Miles [Davis] probably.

“This year, the theme is the music of another great artist who passed in the prior year, Ornette Coleman. This is a challenge because his music is and was revolutionary and still is not the normal music of what we call jazz or straight-ahead jazz.”

Despite the challenges inherent in performing Coleman’s signature “free jazz” compositions, which may not be a style some listeners are familiar with, Liebman is confident the “Jazz Upstairs” audience will be characteristically receptive.

“I have complete confidence in this audience, which has been able to really go with me over the years. I really have felt it’s quite a learning curve on their part and they’re really accepting and very enthusiastic about me bringing in sometimes things that aren’t on everybody’s plate. Hopefully, they will enjoy this repertoire of Ornette Coleman that we will be playing.”

Liebman returns to Miller Symphony Hall with what he considers his working group, Expansions. The mix of younger formally-schooled musicians, veteran bassist Tony Marino and Liebman bridge generational and musical experiences. The result is a sound that blends contemporary music trends while paying homage to the past.

“This group, Expansions, I started and it is a look at the younger generation of musicians,” Liebman explains. With the exception of Marino, with whom Liebman has played alongside for decades, the remaining musicians, Matt Vashlishan, reeds; Bobby Avey, piano, and Alex Ritz, drums, represent up-and-coming players.

“They’re adding something musically in our world,” Liebman says of his younger cohorts. “That means a different way of looking at the music because in jazz if we follow the history line in terms of it, every 10 to 15 years, there’s been another way of looking at the material, from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to John Coltrane.

“These guys,” he says of Vashlishan, Avey and Ritz, “They have a different way of playing and I wanted to expand my realm and see what they were doing on the other end, the younger generation. So that was the impetus for putting together the group.”

Vashlishan and Avey hail from the Poconos, which the New York-born Liebman has called home for the past 30 years, and were students of Liebman and his wife, Caris, who teaches ear-training.

“We know these guys since they were teenagers and we’ve watched and helped them develop. So, I now have my former students as bandmates. It’s really great. They do play different and I have to learn. The learning curve is a big one. You have to keep up.”

Liebman adds that he learns from being exposed to their musical interests, which are different from his. Meanwhile, they tap into his vast musical fountain.

“The kind of stuff we do is not transferrable by words,” Liebman explains. “You have to be on the stage to understand this. It’s beyond words what people learn from each other in music. Besides the details that’s on the page are things that really cannot be described. It can only be realized by being in the middle of the scene, which in our case means playing. The real deal is playing. The rest is window-dressing.”

Liebman and Expansions will showcase Coleman’s music in a way that also makes it their own. “When I do another artist’s material, I figure it’s fair game to inject my own personality and musical taste into it,” he says. “We do our own version of things that he did because you couldn’t copy him, anyway. He’s an original.

“I think the greatest sign of respect for an artist is to say, ‘Here’s the material, take it and adapt it to your own personal needs.’ That’s the way I’ve always done it even with Coltrane and Miles Davis and [Thelonious] Monk. I did a record of Puccini arias. You know, it’s kind of what I like to do. So, we’ll be doing that on Friday night.

“I’m excited and interested in the reaction to playing this body of music of Ornette Coleman that we will be doing and I look forward to the evening.”

Tickets: Miller Symphony Hall Box Office, 23 N. Sixth St., Allentown; allentownsymphony.org; 610-432-6715