New project - Dave Douglas & NOMAD

[cannonball-addict]

I received this for aiplay and MAN is this a good group or what? The street date was January 25th but I suppose a lot of you guys or gals already have it - especially Chicago folks since its on this new subdivision of Premonition which Douglas owns called "Green Leaf."

The ensemble is really unique. The instrumentation that Douglas is using brings Arthur Blythe to mind in that they are unlikely to be put together - tuba, cello, drums, middle-register woodwinds (alto, clarinet, bass clarinet). Like modern third stream.

The concept of the album is also pretty phenomenal - premiering a commission in the wilderness:

Edited February 3, 2005 by cannonball-addict

[Joe M]

I've only listened to portions of this, and I'm sure Douglas fans will like it, but in all honesty, I'm getting kind of bored with his work, or any artist who has as many different groups as he has pairs of shoes. It's like a bad cliche - "oh, DD has a new cd, featuring his new side project XYZ, which is in addition to the 12 other bands he currently leads." His work seems to me to lack focus.

Flame away!

[cannonball-addict]

I know he's the hot ticket in jazz right now or has been since JazzTimes and Downbeat proclaimed him the best trumpeter around but I think there are parallels to other great musicians. For instance, I would draw a connection between someone like Sam Rivers and Dave Douglas or Malachi Thompson and Dave Douglas. They all SEEM unfocused but it's because they are such creative, forward-thinking individuals.

I know it's kind of absurb how many bands Douglas has, but in all honesty when do you think the last time was that the Convergence string group band got back together and did a tour or the Tiny Bell Trio (yeah maybe here and there). But why not "diversify one's portfolio," to use the parlance of our times. He has made himself iinfinitely more marketable (especially to the Japanese and Europeans who are willing to shell out dough in advances and retainers to see these forward-thinker/innovators do their thang on the bandstand).

All the bands he has chartered also gives arts management people and booking outfits the ability to say, look, here's this educated guy who's a good player and a good educator (evidenced by his work at Banff Summer Program) who can wear all these hats and sound darn good in almost all of them. Then the booking people can say, this demographic will eat this up. It's just good business on the part of Dave Douglas.

Sidenote: for a while Dave Douglas seemed to be moving towards the center; what with all the press coverage for "Soul on Soul" and "Strange Liberation" and "Freak In" and "The Infinite." But now he has gone back to his roots as a rather free composer - unbound by stylistic brand names or labels. Now that's he's established his name all over the world as a talented trumpeter and concept man who can do commissions and be versatile, he can go around and do more stuff than he could have had he not gone to mainstream route for a little while there.

Joe M:

Would you call a composer someone who lacks focus? Would you chide a jazz musician for going in several directions at once? Isn't that what jazz is about? Ideally?

I frankly wouldn't be surprised if he started to do what Don Byron has been known for, with social commentary. In fact the two musicians are alike in many creative respects. They want to do all these different things because so much occurs to them that hasn't been done - tonally, theoretically, harmonically.

I want to see more of Dave Douglas, the prose writer as well. The piece he wrote on Roswell Rudd being marked "avant garde" was thoughtful. I forget which publication it was in.

p.s. i think it was a shameful thing when the editors of downbeat and jazztimes both thought they had a good idea by pitting dave against wynton. why do that? to sell magazines, yes....but i am confident that dave never thinks about wynton and wynton is too damn busy on tour all the goddamn time to be thinkin about dave. so as far as I'm concerned there don't seem to be a problem...just a ploy by the publishers to sell product.

......and that's all I have to say about that........

Edited February 3, 2005 by cannonball-addict

[Guest Chaney]

I want to see more of Dave Douglas, the prose writer as well. The piece he wrote on Roswell Rudd being marked "avant garde" was thoughtful. I forget which publication it was in.

Available on Dave's site HERE.

[Green Dolphin]

As far as I'm concerned I'd like to see DD's unrecorded ensembles release stuff too!Got this one the other day and was expecting comparisons with Bow River Falls set from last year,but there's a bit more fire in the belly here.Echoes of the Charms of The Night Sky group too.Must've been a helluva gig up in the mountains...well worth the hike!

Good to see he's his own label now,although we weren't too badly served by the BMG deal all told.

[Joe M]

Joe M:

Would you call a composer someone who lacks focus? Would you chide a jazz musician for going in several directions at once? Isn't that what jazz is about? Ideally?

I would call a compser who lacks focus just that. I'm not sure if it's necessary to have a different ensemble every time you want to play a different type of music. It's very postmodern, and I know that's what Dave is all about, but it has its downside too.