“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” Trumpeter Dave Douglas’s response to his own question is to present a set of new music surrounding four intriguing takes on the music of Billy Strayhorn. You can’t go wrong with Strayhorn, but in truth the entire set is “about the blessings of life and music that we share with each other”.
The line-up is interesting, a Douglas–James Brandon Lewis trumpet-tenor frontline supported by Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang on guitar and drums respectively, with no bass, together creating a harmonically spacious sound. Bhatia and Chang are core members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux, and although guitar is a rarely heard instrument in a Douglas line-up, Bhatia’s sonically adventurous, enhanced guitar palette frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.
The album opens in the glitzy, atmospheric haze of the title track that sets a tone of both dark lyricism and mystery that continues in the slow-grooving shuffle of Kind Of Teal, aka Teal In Green as inspired by Miles Davis. Brandon Lewis is eloquent and fluid, Douglas’s vibrant, punchy interjections always welcome.
The four Strayhorn pieces form a centrepiece as they run in sequence from Take The A Train through to Day Dream, Brandon Lewis appearing on the rocking feel and hip, flowing unisons of A Train only. As Douglas states, “I’m not trying to be ‘faithful’ to the original here. And I was ecstatic with the way the band dug into it!” The other three Strayhorns, as well as the Douglas originals Small Bar and Third Dream, are all trio pieces, recreating the Tiny Bell group instrumentation of trumpet, guitar, and drums, and none of them are taken reverentially, although Blood Count initially remains very true to the original before Bhatia’s distorted guitar solo cuts into the sombre mood.
Of the remaining Douglas tracks, the unsettling Seven Years Ago harks back to when it was written in America’s first dark days of Trump in 2017, while the reverie that is Third Dream is autobiographical, Douglas admitting that his third dream of the night “is usually one in which all anxiety and perturbations are settled”.
There should be no anxiety about this set for, as ever, Dave Douglas keeps on developing, trying out new approaches and sonic combinations. He always surprises in what he does, and always entertains. This fine new gift set continues that consistent push forward.
Discography
Gifts; Kind Of Teal; Take The A Train; Rain Check; Blood Count; Day Dream; Seven Years Ago; Small Bar; Third Dream; Goodbyes (63.39)
Douglas (t); James Brandon Lewis (ts); Rafiq Bhatia (elg); Ian Chang (d). Brooklyn, NYC, 11 December 2023.
Greenleaf Music GRE-CD-1108
