Dave Douglas - Devotion

The Guardian 80

(Greenleaf)
Inspired by a cappella Sacred Harp singing, the trumpeter also pays tribute to Carla Bley and Mary Lou Williams in this intensely personal trio set

Trumpeter Dave Douglas emerged in the 1980s with soul-jazz piano star Horace Silver, a glitzy but generic intro that hardly suggested the prize-strewn career he would forge as an improviser, composer and all-round enabling dynamo. He has since traversed John Zorn’s free-jazz-meets-klezmer Masada group, explored his own jazz, classical, world-musical and contemporary dance and non-western projects, and paid heartfelt and thoughtful tributes to his influences: Björk, Thom Yorke, Wayne Shorter, jazz composer Mary Lou Williams and more. Devotion – to musical, personal, political and cultural inspirations – is always the name of his game. Most Dave Douglas albums could own that title, one way or another.