Dave Douglas will celebrate his fortieth birthday on March 24th with a series of 10 concerts at the Jazz Standard in New York, presenting ten of his working bands over six nights. On the final night, the 30th of March, Douglas will introduce his electronic septet, in its current incarnation, with new members that did not take part in the septet's debut disc, 'Freak In'.
The septet debut is very much a studio disc. Douglas recorded himself, drummer Joey Baron and bassist Brad Jones and then constructed pieces in the studio with the help of associate producer and keyboard player, Jamie Saft, adding new musicians to every piece. Comparisons to the 'electric' period of Miles Davis are inevitable. Douglas and Saft seem to update the cutting and splicing studio work of producer Teo Macero. The sound of the electric Fender Rhodes with polyrhythmic tabla and electric guitar draws the listener back to Miles Davis discs, such as Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson and Live Evil. The eclectic sound sources and styles of other pieces seem as much a tribute to the John Zorn's cut-and-paste method.
But the overall result is very much a Dave Douglas work. There are myriad references to his own work, recorded and unrecorded. The tabla was first introduced in his unrecorded trio, Satya, with Myra Melford on harmonium and Samir Chatterjee on tablas. The rich textures of the samplers were first tested in his Sanctuary band and perfected later with his Witness band. The multi-layered studio work was introduced in his solo recording of Dave Brubeck's piece "Nomad," included on In His Own Sweet Way, a Brubeck tribute released on Zorn's Avant label. Douglas also borrowed themes from three pieces in his unrecorded suite Flemish Primitives, composed for the new music ensemble Ictus.
The trumpeter's multicultural affinities and peaceful political commitments are also evident on the new disc. "Porto Alegre" (the BrazilianWorld Social Forum hometown) and "Wild Blue" are inspired by radical, Marxist Uruguayan writer, activist and poet, Eduardo Galeano. Douglas' treated voice intones Galeano's work on the latter piece, a work that in some part references Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Douglas also suggests in the liner notes that we "enhance our journey' with further readings about the Catholic militant anti-war activists, Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, and with anti-globalization essays of Author Naomi Klein."
Douglas constructed Freak In as if he was a film director, an artist with a vision who knows how to select the right players to every scene/ piece and how to construct the end result. In no other band would the outer-worldly electronic percussion of Ikue Mori fit the boppish Seamus Blake's saxophone playing. And that is Douglas' great achievement. All the pieces sound surprisingly organic and coherent, and the listener does not seem to miss the live interplay of the whole band. Douglas challenges other band leaders with his studio crafted pieces.
Of the thirteen new pieces (the twelfth, "The Mystic Lamb" is appears a few minutes after the end of track eleven, its title hidden in the small print of the label credits on the back cover. The thirteenth, 'Paradise', is shown as a short video on the website: www.whoatemyjazz.com. I really dug the meditative 'November' that begins with Douglas' trumpet and Karsh Kale's (Sussan Deyhim, Bill Laswell) tabla and evolves into a loungey piece with Marc Ribot's delicate guitar playing, ending with a mutated female voice delivering a twisted birthday greeting. On "The Great Schism" the percolating rhythms of Baron, Kale and Mori integrates into a powerful unit. "The Mystic Lamb" is mainly a duo of Douglas and Mori, more focused than Mori collaboration with Wadada Leo Smith's on Smith's "Luminous Axis" on Tzadik, and holds promise for future Douglas and Mori coll aborations. Douglas' trumpet p laying through out this disc is, as always, brilliant.
Douglas' artistic vision defies our preconceived definitions and generalizations about what jazz is and what it will be in the future. But that is to be expected from Douglas, a challenge to the audience, not just as listeners but as as responsible and conscious citizens. The electronic septet is the most iconoclastic work Douglas has made. An exhilarating release, along with 2001's Witness the best Douglas yet.
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