I think the most exciting thing about Dave Douglas is that he is impossible to pin down - just when I catch up to his most recent project, he's on to something new and, invariably, different. But whether he's playing in a jazz trio or a brass quintet, or performing a live soundtrack to a silent film, Dave Douglas is at the upper echelon of international jazz performance, pushing boundaries with his writing and playing, and always sounding great.
Since releasing his first solo album in 1993, two-time Grammy-nominated trumpeter Dave Douglas has released more than 30 recordings, launched his own record label (Greenleaf Music), and earned a Guggneheim Fellowship. Currently the Artistic Director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at The Banff Centre, Dave has earned acclaim from the New York Jazz Awards, DownBeat Magazine, JazzTimes, Jazziz, and the Italian Critics Society. In the past year alone, he's released Spirit Moves, featuring his brass quintet Brass Ecstasy; A Single Sky, a big band project in collaboration with Jim McNeely and the Frankfurt Radio Bigband; and Spark of Being, his most recent collaboration with award-winning American contemporary filmmaker Bill Morrison. Talk about prolific! Click here to check out the video of Brass Ecstasy's performance on an NPR Tiny Desk Concert.
For his June 29 performance at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, Dave Douglas will be bringing his Keystone project, featuring Marcus Strickland (tenor sax), Adam Benjamin (Fender Rhodes), Brad Jones (bass) and Gene Lake (drums). This is one of the shows that has me most excited: while the quintet plays on stage, Bill Morrison's film Spark of Being will screen in the background - Keystone will essentially be providing the live soundtrack to the film! Spark of Being is Bill Morrison's take on the Frankenstein story, and this project comes 100 years after the premiere of the first Frankenstein film interpretation. Check out the trailer:
I had the opportunity to help produce a similar project in April, 2009 - a collaboration between Continuum Contemporary Music and the Images Festival - and audience reaction was amazing: there is a buzz created by combining these two art forms (film and music); this show will be a rare opportunity to see the work of masters of two art forms on the same night.
To get a sense of the music that will be played click here to hear "Sapphire Sky Blue" from the original Keystone project, which featured the ensemble playing the soundtrack to Fatty Arbuckle silent films. And, to see what it looks like with the music and film lined up, check out his clip:
Email this page to a friend