Jazz album of the month review – Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas Sound Prints - Scandal

The Guardian 80

A beacon of group unity and flexibility with a smouldering title track

The Sound Prints quintet, co-led by saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas, can surely book its place on the 2018 albums of the year lists thanks to the smouldering, Miles-muted trumpet sound and hip yet stately horn counterpoint of its title track alone. For some, a downside of Scandal might be that it’s unapologetically a jazz album – entirely instrumental, jazz-referential in the accuracy of its fascination with the music of Wayne Shorter; particularly Shorter’s 1960s work and involvement in Miles Davis’ second quintet.

But the five year-old group – Lovano and Douglas, plus pianist Lawrence Fields, double bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Joey Baron – tell better jazz stories from this kind of perspective than most, and this session catches them at their most collectively fluent. Scandal’s release is backed by a European tour next month.