4-star DownBeat HotBox review of Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas Sound Prints!
“The marvelous, mercurial quintet…is one of the foremost ensembles in jazz. . .the band specializes in long-form improvisation with recurring motifs and unpredictable twists and turns. Sound Prints also burns hot, swings hard and showcases Lovano’s and Douglas’ unmistakable personalities.”
Jazz Times: Sound Prints captures Wayne Shorter's "audacity and innovation"
Sound Prints is less about Shorter’s individual style than his audacity and innovation, and on those fronts Live triumphs. . .the band makes Shorter’s ideas wholly their own, adds its own considerable ideas on top, and does so with relish. - Michael J. West, JazzTimes
Sound Prints will release their debut recording Live at Monterey Jazz Festival on April 7. Preorder the album now at iTunes and get a free track.
Chicago Tribune: Dave Douglas meets Columbia students in bold new music
By Howard Reich
There's nothing more inspiring in jazz than watching young musicians sharing a stage with a master composer-improviser.
Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune
That happens periodically at the Jazz Showcase, when a collegiate band appears alongside a noted soloist, but on Thursday night there was a new twist to the formula: The students didn't just play the scores – they wrote them.
For the past several months, members of the Columbia College Jazz Ensemble have been penning and polishing their big-band compositions and rehearsing them with Dave Douglas, one of the most admired trumpeters in jazz. Douglas has been flying to Chicago periodically to develop the work with the students, who are being taught by Columbia's director of jazz studies, Scott Hall.
So when the band took the stage at the Showcase, they carried a triple load as composers, performers and partners of a major jazz artist. They did so with aplomb.
Read he rest here.
"Present Joys" named one of DownBeat's Best Albums of 2014
Check out the whole list here.
"Riverside" named one of DownBeat's Best Albums of 2014
See the list here.
"Present Joys" #5 in Francis Davis' Year-End List
Francis Davis, writer for NPR's A Blog Supreme, coordinated the voting for the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. (See that list here.) Here's what he wrote about "Present Joys" in his own list:
5. Dave Douglas & Uri Caine, Present Joys (Greenleaf). The trumpeter and the pianist are so tuned into each other from having played in each other's bands for so long that hearing them duet is always an exciting prospect. What makes this encounter all the more special is the unexpected harmonic sophistication with which they approach humble melodies from the Sacred Harp (i.e. shape note) songbook, together with a few Douglas originals in the same vein.
See the entire post here.
The 2014 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll
Dave Douglas & Uri Caine's album Present Joys makes this year's NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. Read the piece and see the rest of the list here.
"Present Joys" makes Hank Shteamer's 2014 Jazz Top Ten List
I'm not all that familiar with Dave Douglas's enormous body of work. I've enjoyed the handful of his records I've checked out during the past few years, and there are a few back-catalog titles I remember digging many years back (including the Booker Little tribute In Our Lifetime and the Tiny Bell Trio's Songs for Wandering Souls), but I'm no expert. That's even more true re: my knowledge of Uri Caine. But Present Joys immediately felt familiar and inviting to me, and it's stuck with me since its release over the summer. I think this is because it falls into a certain category of record that I have an affinity for—not just a horn/piano duo album, but one with a powerful unifying mood, a reason for existing.
Read the rest here.
The Arts Desk reviews Sound Prints at the EFG London Jazz Festival
Charles Lloyd / Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas, Barbican
A jazz festival finale of rare brilliance
by Thomas Rees
It’s not easy to write about a gig when you’re still shaking with adrenaline, still less so when that gig is the grand finale of the 2014 EFG London Jazz Festival, the climax to a giddy ten days of world-class contemporary music. But it’s a cross I’ll have to bear, because last night’s performance from legendary saxophonist Charles Lloyd and jazz giants tenorist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas demands it.
Read the rest at theartsdesk.com.