June 20 - June 27, 1 9 9 6

Tiny Bell ringing

Trumpeter Dave Douglas is a 20th-century MVP

by Ed Hazell

Boston jazz clubs routinely book the art's older, mature masters, who play music of great beauty and excitement with assurance and refinement. But it's rare that we get club visits from young out-of-town musicians who are pushing the boundaries and developing personal vocabularies. So the first set by Dave Douglas and the Tiny Bell Trio at Ryles on June 10 was a long-overdue reminder that jazz is a music of discovery and adventure as well as refinement.

Besides Tiny Bell, trumpeter Douglas currently fronts two other regular bands: a string group that plays a sensuous updated Third Stream music, and a sextet that plays more in the jazz tradition. Tiny Bell focuses on Eastern European folk songs, but Douglas makes connections so rapidly that generalizing about any of the bands is dangerous. Each group is likely to cross into the territory of the other.

During their opening set at Ryles, Douglas, guitarist Brad Schoeppach, and drummer Jim Black did play two Hungarian folk tunes -- one of which, the closing "Czardas," they recorded on their Tiny Bell debut on the Songlines label. But they also played "Prolix," a new Douglas piece based on a folk song from Okinawa, a decidedly non-European locale, and an arrangement of the Arabesque for Clarinet and Piano by "Les Six" classical composer Germaine Tailleferre. These elements of European classical and folk music mix freely with African-American swing and the blues in a playful postmodern mix that's lyrical, fast-paced, and richly colored.

This is a trio of careful listeners with quick reflexes, which means the music changes quickly and unpredictably without losing a sense of direction or coherence. A new Douglas piece, "Old Cars Don't," maintained its sense of direction as it worked its way through free pulse time into odd meters and different swing tempos. As the trio played, each contributed equally to the piece's development, with Schoeppach throwing fat, soft-edged textures against Douglas's tight, narrow tones and Black orchestrating his kit with a manic sense of humor. Schoeppach also has a perverse sense of dynamics and rhythm. On the opening title track of their hatArt CD Constellations (one of 1995's essential albums), he played softly when one might expect him to play loudly, and he lobbed in off-center chords and warped paraphrases of the theme, frequently knocking a receptive Douglas or Black in new directions.

With his rich, intimate tone, in which dark somberness contends with sparkling joy, Douglas was consistently engaging. On the evening's second piece, an untitled original, he seesawed through a statement of marvelous contrasts. He slipped in softly, muttering and growling, squeezed out a tentative note, then catapulted to a sure, high, clear tone. He tumbled from the heights in a zigzag line to some low sad notes. He picked himself up again, used soft-loud dynamics to enhance the push-pull tension of short, choppy riffs, then unleashed progressively longer, tightly constructed lines that ended in half-valved, sobbing inflections. It was a virtuoso display of structure, variegated texture, and emotional depth.

If you missed the live set, consider that independent jazz labels have a Dave Douglas cottage industry going. The string group's latest, Five (Soul Note), takes its music to a new level. The ensemble's flexibility, precision, and swing are at an even higher pitch than on the debut CD, and Douglas's scoring is eventful and full of surprise without being chaotic. Six Douglas dedications to friends and inspirations like Woody Shaw and John Zorn, plus arrangements of Monk's "Who Knows" and Roland Kirk's "The Inflated Tear," deepen the album's historical base and enrich Douglas's own voice, which grows stronger with each recording. Douglas is also a busy sideman. On bassist Mark Dresser's Force Green (Soul Note) his warmth and versatility are essential components of Dresser's strongest, most fully realized outing as a leader.

More recordings are on the way. Tiny Bell will make a third album live in Europe this fall. Future plans also include what Douglas calls an updated free-jazz album and tribute to John Coltrane's "Ascension," using two samplers/DJs, among others. A new sextet CD in homage to Wayne Shorter is in the works too. In the fall, Douglas will appear on a Myra Melford quintet CD and on what promises to be a hilariously inventive meeting with European improv supergroup the Clusone Trio. Both will be released by Gramavision.

His albums and the set at Ryles suggest that Dave Douglas is one of the major voices in jazz as we head for the turn of this century. His music may require careful attention, but it rewards with an exuberant, kaleidoscopic art of fearless exploration.