Other Worlds by Sound Prints
Saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas debuted their extraordinary Sound Prints quintet on Blue Note Records in 2013, the year of Wayne Shorter’s 80th birthday, and from the outset the group had a joyful but somewhat imposing mandate: to lift up Shorter’s legacy through the writing and performance of new music conceived in his risk-taking, fearlessly inventive spirit. Supported by a powerful multi-generational lineup of pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Joey Baron, the group debuted with Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival, which included world-premiere performances of two brand-new Shorter pieces.
Scandal, the group’s 2018 follow-up on Greenleaf Music, featured the same personnel on a new book of Lovano and Douglas originals as well as fresh arrangements of “JuJu” and “Fee Fi Fo Fum,” two Blue Note-era Shorter classics. With Other Worlds, recorded just days after a triumphant weeklong run at the Village Vanguard in January 2020, the Sound Prints quintet achieves another first, a full album of original compositions. But while no Shorter tunes appear, Shorter’s far-sighted philosophic vision of modern jazz animates these great players in every measure. “Wayne inspires us to think about our place in the universe,” Douglas maintains. “You can’t divorce that from the music.”
Almost every track on Other Worlds is a first take, thanks in no small part to the bandstand chemistry that Sound Prints achieved in set after set at the Vanguard. “Everybody brought their own self but also their Sound Prints self,” Douglas says. “We played a different set list every night, every set, because the order you play things in has a big influence on how they develop. So each night, different tunes would bump up against different tunes. We really figured out the dynamics of the whole thing, and by the time we got to the studio, we knew.”
“The way Dave and I set up together,” adds Lovano, “the way we’d play the themes and improvise together and trade, we were right there next to each other, so we were feeling what each other was playing. Dave and Joey and I have a deep history playing together: I go back to the ’70s with Joey, and the ’80s with Dave.”
Douglas adds: “Joey was on all my sextet records, and then of course he and I were in John Zorn’s Masada for many years together.” Oh, who came onto Douglas’ radar as a student at Banff, has logged many hours in Douglas ’ quintet (not to mention Pat Metheny, Kenny Barron, Fabian Almazan and Vijay Iyer, among many others). Lovano encountered Fields as a student at Berklee; he’s since done high-profile work with Nicholas Payton, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Jeff “Tain” Watts and more.
“The whole concept of the band is dialogue and interaction,” Douglas notes. “And when you play that way, nobody can retreat into the role of their instrument. Everybody’s playing everything, all the time. Some pieces don’t have any chords, others have a lot of chords, and so you look for the piano to provide a balance so it’s not all one thing or the other. Both the free context and the chordal context have the same level of dialogue and conversation. Something new with this book is that we’re writing specifically for that chemistry, whereas in the beginning we were sort of imagining it, letting it unfold.”
Lovano’s “Space Exploration,” “Shooting Stars” and “The Flight” together make up the “Other Worlds Suite,” which appears noncontiguously (much like it might have at the Vanguard). “Those three pieces came together as a sequence of events,” Lovano explains, “and everyone captured the essence of that idea. The quintet is on a voyage together, and so the title ‘Space Exploration’ is about the music too, it’s about this certain way of playing together, not just writing a theme and playing on it, but a flow of ideas.”
It was “Sky Miles,” the first of Lovano’s pieces, that set the album’s space theme in motion, and Douglas was easily able to connect that to his recent interest in the study of antiquity. “I was doing a lot of reading about the period 2500-3000 years ago,” he says, “thinking about Pythagoras and the growth of science. Antiquity can be directly connected to the continuing movement of humanity through countless discoveries, and the cultural growth as we all discover each other around the globe and figure out how to work together and live together.”
In a brief liner note to the band’s 2013 debut, there appears a verse from Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson that begins, “… come, my friends, / ’tis not too late to seek a newer world.” These lines ring all too true today, as music and the arts begin what is sure to be a long recovery process. “The music is moving forward whether we choose to jump on the train or not,” Douglas avers. “We’re incredibly lucky that we recorded Other Worlds when we did — we had talked about doing it later. But one thing led to another and there was no reason to wait. We went right on into it and I’m so glad we did.”
Tracklist
| 1. | Space Exploration | 10:00 |
| 2. | Shooting Stars | 1:05 |
| 3. | Life On Earth | 7:34 |
| 4. | Manitou | 5:59 |
| 5. | Antiquity to Outer Space | 7:45 |
| 6. | The Flight | 8:32 |
| 7. | The Transcendentalists | 5:42 |
| 8. | Sky Miles | 7:32 |
| 9. | Pythagoras | 8:23 |
| 10. | Midnight March | 7:25 |
Videos
Credits
Personnel:
Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone
Dave Douglas, trumpet
Lawrence Fields, piano
Linda May Han Oh, bass
Joey Baron, drums
Production credits:
Produced by Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas
Executive Producer: Dave Douglas
Recorded by Tyler McDiarmid and Geoff Countryman at Bunker Studios, Brooklyn, NY on January 31, 2020.
Assisted by Todd Carder
Mixed and Mastered by Tyler McDiarmid
Musician photos by Geoff Countryman
Artwork by Dave Chisholm davechisholmmusic.com
Layout by Lukas Frei
Other Worlds Suite: 1. Space Exploration, 2. Shooting Stars, 3. The Flight composed by Joe Lovano
Joe Lovano compositions Lovo Music / BMI
Dave Douglas compositions Dave Douglas Music / BMI
Thank yous:
FROM JOE: I’d like to give special thanks to Dave Douglas for his amazing music, imagination, creativity, and commitment to details. The Greenleaf Music staff for their passion and dedication. Lawrence, Linda, and Joey for their beautiful sounds and feelings. Judi Silvano for her love, music, art, and inspiration. Wayne Shorter for his embrace through the years.
FROM DAVE: Enthusiastically second all of Joe’s thank yous! And add my eternal gratitude to Joe Lovano for years of guidance, brilliant sonic vision, and leadership. Thanks to Tyler, The Bunker, and Dave Chisholm. Gratitude to Suzannah, Marietta, and my entire family.
Joe Lovano plays a Borgani Liquid Silver Tenor, Francois Louis Handmade Wooden Mouthpiece, Kim Bosh hand pounded Copper Redwood Neck, and Alexander NY Cut Reeds.
Linda May Han Oh plays D'Addario Strings.
Reviews:
"Sound Prints’ music may reference the classic free-collective innovations of Shorter, Ornette, and the mid-60s Miles quintet, but their audaciously sophisticated refinement of all that rich history makes them a truly contemporary jazz band."
- Jazzwise, Editor's Choice ★★★★
“On “Life on Earth,” a swiftly shuffling Douglas tune, the pianist Lawrence Fields plays less and less as the trumpeter’s solo develops, moving from a colorist’s role to that of a jagged percussion instrument. Lovano’s tenor saxophone solo brings a sluice of energy flooding back in, until Fields and the bassist Linda May Han Oh finish off the solo section with briefly suspenseful, dashing statements of their own.”
- Giovanni Russonello, New York Times
"Wayne Shorter continues to glimmer as the lodestar for Sound Prints, a superb combo that excels at trumpeting its honoree’s expansive artistry without losing its own identity. Other Worlds simultaneously applauds Shorter’s legacy and cultivates one of its own."
- Downbeat ★★★★1/2
"What began as an opportunity to pay tribute to Shorter has evolved into an ongoing pairing of two charismatic soloists in their prime with a highly engaged rhythm section."
- Downbeat Hotbox Review ★★★★
“Given its instrumentation and concept, the Soundprints assemblage begs comparison to Miles’s Great Quintet of the 1960s, the greatest small group in the history of jazz. Let’s just say that Lovano, Douglas and company stack up way better than most."
- JAZZIZ
“The album has the first-take freshness of well-gigged music with musicians who trust each other. This feels like essential music from a world-class band.”
- London Jazz News
“The musicianship involved here is outstanding, resulting in a work of great impact that deserves enthusiastic commendation.”
- Jazz Trail
“Sound Prints deliver 10 new tunes that firmly place the quintet of saxophonist Joe Lovano, trumpeter Dave Douglas, drummer Joey Baron, bassist Linda May Han Oh and pianist Lawrence Fields in a long tradition of improvising groups who flit in between being out there and swinging in the pocket as well.”
- Calgary Herald
“The music keeps moving forward with force, but there always seems to be air underneath—as if the music were able to glide until it needed another shot of propulsion.”
- Paste Magazine
“On the shape-shifting Sky Miles Lovano flutters over a floating rhythm, Douglas drifts and darts around Joey Baron’s restless drums and the bassist Linda May Han Oh is poignant and profound.”
- The Times UK ★★★★☆
“In the best way on Other Worlds, it's easy to lose yourself and get pulled into Sound Prints' interstellar sparring.”
- All Music
“This is a perfect illustration of the post-bop language evolving through sly creative usage.”
- NPR / All Things Considered
"Heady stuff, worthy of emersion."
- Stereophile ★★★★☆
"Album-of-the-year material."
- Jazz Journal ★★★★★
“Lovano’s burnished tenor and Douglas’ refined tone make a harmonious pair, revealing a forward-thinking approach that embraces all aspects of the jazz continuum.”
- Point of Departure
“Throughout, Lovano and Douglas are the kind of pair that you want in a jazz record: musicians who, despite their distinct and immediately recognizable syntaxes, find ways of attuning themselves to the same frequency whenever the music requires.”
- NYC Jazz Record
"The album bristles with authority."
- The Wire
"’Other Worlds’ is an album well worth exploring!”
- Step Tempest
"Some of Shorter’s spirit is here—the melodic hooks, complex harmonies, high-fly solos, hot and cool swing—but the music is more meditative, sometimes fragmentary, but still riveting ... this is one of the most exuberant bands out there."
- Slate, Best Jazz Albums of 2021, #1
“This is contemporary jazz at the highest level of creativity. The group has developed over the years and all members are at the top of their game. This is complex, sometimes convoluted and always experimental music that is a delight.”
- Keith Black, Winnipeg Free Press ★★★★1/2
"These are five excellent musicians creating music which combines familiar elements and exploratory freedom. This release shows that Sound Prints has become a very formidable unit."
- Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz ★★★★☆
"But in the end, what amazes the most is this way of being together, of being one with the music in a riot of energy and shared happiness."
- Julien Aunos, Citizan Jazz
"Overall the quintet shows integrity in emphasizing earthbound calm matched with clarion playing. "
- Ken Waxman, Jazz Word
License
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Sound Prints is an innovative quintet co-led by saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas featuring pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Joey Baron. While the group takes their inspiration from the music of iconic saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, the quintet’s focus is on new original compositions by Lovano and Douglas.