Search - Dave Douglas :: Sanctuary

Experimental music for people with long attention spans.

Douglas T Martin | Alpharetta, GA USA | 10/21/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A very dense work owing something to Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" double quartet. Listening through headphones lets you differentiate between the two groupings - otherwise they tend to blur together. The music is very freeform; sometimes it sounds like everyone is off doing their own thing before a theme develops. What's particularly interesting is the mixing of samplers with the traditional jazz instruments. The cacophony of eight players wailing away is familiar to anyone that listens to experimental jazz, but throwing some sampled drum patterns into the maelstrom and then having the other instruments fall into a groove with said patterns is something new - plus there aren't that many jazz recordings that use prepared pianos (to my knowledge). Listen to the soundbytes of "Three Beasts" or "Mad Dog" for examples of this combination of styles and sounds. Dougie Bowne plays very well; he gets more of a chance to stretch out in this kind of setting than he would in the Lounge Lizards or other groups. Those who only know Yuka Honda through her work with Cibo Matto will be very surprised by how she sounds in this ensemble. All of the musicians are in top form in a very unconventional recording.Yuka Honda and Anthony Coleman: samplers; Hilliard Greene and Mark Dresser: basses; Dave Douglas and Cuong Vu: trumpets; Chris Speed: clarinet and tenor sax; Dougie Bowne: drums."

Requires a lot of time and patience

S. Hawkins | New York, NY | 09/20/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This strikes me as Dave Douglas's most ambitious work - a 2 CD small-ensemble work that is meant to be played as a continuous track. Easy for him to say - this is c. 2 hours of extremely dense, involved music. While this is not something you can simply put on in the background, as it is rather attention grabbing, it is something of a challenge devoting enough time to properly listening to this album.However, it's well-worth it - Douglas cites an interesting list of inspirations for this album, Coltrane to Boulez to Boccaccio, and somehow manages to pay homage to them with this album. It's a masterful blend of written and improvised...a feat that is rather daunting when you consider that this album is set up as two ensembles (each made up of trumpet, drums, sampler) working together and being anchored by a saxophone and a bass (the speakers pan out accordingly).This provides for a rewarding, if difficult listen. Sometimes the music might initially fly over one's head, but things slowly fall into place."