Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dave in Miles mode, April 27, 2004
I've got to admit, I'm a little puzzled by the direction Dave Douglas has been moving in lately. I originally got into his playing through John Zorn's Masada, and his own highly original groups Tiny Bell Trio and Charms Of The Night Sky. It is noteworthy that in the liner notes to the 2000 album 'A Thousand Evenings' by the latter band Douglas wrote about the futility of reliving Miles classics such as 'Birth Of The Cool', 'Kind Of Blue' and 'Filles de Kilimanjaro'.And yet here, just a few years later we see him very much in Miles mode, in not just this album but also the previous two ('Freak In' and 'The Infinite'). Now of course there's no denying that this album is good, the tunes are good, the players are all amazing, but it's just so *safe*. We know these guys can play the hell out of bop tunes - that's why we've been so thrilled to hear Douglas mixing it up with Balkan rhythms, or accordion and violin, or pianist Uri Caine arranging music by Mahler and Bach. So anyway, on to special guest Bill Frisell... the prospect of these guys (two of my favourite musicians) making an album together a few years ago would have been one of the most exciting things imaginable. Now, they seem to be settling down, making pretty pleasant music without the danger we once knew from them. Like I said before, the playing is still great and all, but just a bit predictable, not a lot of sparks there. It's not all *that* predictable though - for example they try out a 50s rock thing, which for my money doesn't really work. Apart from the awful name ('Rock Of Billy') it also just puts the vibe of the album out of whack for six minutes. The piece that follows, however, 'The Frisell Dream', is fantastic, one of my favourite Dave Douglas compositions in a long while. It is a little bit cluttered though, and I have to wonder, on this track as well as others, whether the six-piece band is so necessary (despite the players' obvious talents).
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Homage to Miles, February 19, 2004
I'm writing this review because I've noticed that there are a few total Dave Douglas junkies who post on Amazon who are, in my view, a little hyperbolic. If I were browsing for an CD to try, I'm not sure I would find the rave reviews totally helpful. I myself can't say I'm a Dave Douglas fanatic, although I enjoy his CD's very much.
For me, the most striking thing about this new album is that it so directly mimics Miles Davis' sound from the Miles Smiles or Miles in the Sky era. As a longtime jazz listener, I'd say it's not that common to hear one serious artist so overtly pay homage to another. But I swear, if you close your eyes there are moments when you think you're listening to Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Miles et. al. And, of course, Bill Frisell, only adds to the illusion. Curiously, this is the second album in a row where Dave Douglas has paid homage to a specific era of Miles' music - the last one sounding almost dead-on like On the Corner or Live at the Filmore (if you have checked out Freak-In, and liked fusion jazz from the 70s, you should definitely get it. It's been in my CD changer continuously for almost a year).I wouldn't give the album five stars in part because it is derivative. On my favorite Dave Douglas work, he's working with a more original sound. But the playing is absolutely wonderful. The tracks are varied. They swing beautifully. If you like that Miles sound from the late 60s you should definitely pick this up. If you don't own Miles Smiles and Nefretiti, you should buy them first since they are canonical, as Dave Douglas clearly agrees.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strange Liberation or Strange Brew?, June 10, 2004
By A Customer
I've listened to this album a lot since it came out earlier this year and I still can't make up my mind. Is it great or just good? What make it enjoyable for me are Dave Douglas's playful and complex compositions, Bill Frisell's twangy guitar playing, and Uri Caine on the Fender Rhodes. (If there is any more satisfying work on this instrument since Herbie Hancock in the early 1970s, I'd like to know.) But taken as a whole the aesthetic choices on this album seem oddly inconsistent. There are noticeable echoes from middle and late 60s Miles, but the influence of Bill Frisell is even stronger, and I think I hear things from other greats as well, including Wynton Marsalis, Clifford Brown, and John McLaughlin. (Huh? you ask. That's my reaction too.) It is a tribute to the strength of the trumpet playing by Douglas, Caine's keyboard work, and Chris Potter on the tenor sax that Frisell's intensely unique electric guitar does not take over, especially since some of the compositions were written by Douglas with Frisell in mind, but, unlike any Frisell album I've heard, the variation in style and tone on this album leaves me feeling off-balance and dissatisfied. If this is liberation, it is a strange liberation indeed.
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