DAVE DOUGLAS
“How often do we step back and realize what a gift it is to have this music in our life?” asks acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Greenleaf Music founder Dave Douglas. On Gifts, his newest Greenleaf project, Douglas harnesses that feeling of simple wonder with a new book of pieces and four intriguing takes on Strayhorn songs, premiering a new quartet with poll-sweeping tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and two members of the Oscar-nominated post-rock trio Son Lux: guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. The sound is harmonically spacious, with no bass, but a full, sonically adventurous guitar palette from Bhatia that frames the group’s trumpet-tenor melodic concept in fresh and unexpected ways.
In a brief liner note Douglas writes: “ Gifts is about the blessings of life and music that we share with each other. These gifts stem from our common humanity, so essential to our survival as a species. The musical arts are a gift that is shared between musicians, and also with listeners as part of a perpetual conversation. Cherishing the music of the past blesses us to make the music of the future. And despite the odds, to go on creating pathways for generations to come. Gifts we give and gifts we receive. That’s where this music is coming from.”
Douglas elaborates: “There are so many forces affecting all of us. It’s our politics. It’s the pandemic, the economy, the environment. It’s what’s going on in the Middle East. It’s about the world being mediated by online interaction and experience. This music comes from a place that’s not about being online, not about being in competition with anyone. It’s about seizing onthese musical gifts that are right there for us.”
Every player on Gifts brings their own sensibility, and these are gifts as well. Lewis, who appears on five of the 10 tracks, was a student of Douglas’ at Banff years ago and has gone on to wide acclaim and poll wins for his recent Red Lily Quintet albums Jesup Wagon and To Mahalia, With Love. He follows in a distinguished line of tenor players who’ve come through Douglas-led bands, including Chris Potter, Donny McCaslin, Marcus Strickland and Jon Irabagon, not to mention the great Joe Lovano in the co-led Sound Prints quintet.
As core members of Son Lux, Bhatia and Chang have the closest prior working relationship, something that filters into the music on Gifts. Chang appeared on Douglas’ 2018 subscriber-only Greenleaf album UPLIFT with Bill Laswell, Julian Lage and Mary Halvorson. “This is the fourth of Dave’s projects that I’ve had the good fortune to be a part of,” says Bhatia, who subbed for Shigeto on tour with High Risk and for Lage with UPLIFT before joining Melvin Gibbs and Sim Cain on Marching Music (2020).
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