Dave Douglas and Joe Lovano

Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

It’s a Marvel Comics kind of question: What if Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas teamed up? I mean, Lovano and Douglas are this jazz era’s equivalent of the Incredible Hulk and Thor, God of Thunder: They can (and will) do whatever the hell they want, and they’ll do it absolutely splendidly – witness the sterling music Lovano’s created with the atypical configuration that is Us Five; or Douglas’ almost-all-horn band Brass Ecstasy, one of the biggest highlights of last year’s rain-soaked Solid Sound Festival. That’s just two examples from a long, long list of choices! Sure, Lovano and Douglas shared space on the SFJAZZ Collective front line a few years ago, but they were working on someone else’s ideas. But what if they came up with their own concept… like a set of original compositions inspired by jazz icon Wayne Shorter, for instance?

Yes, the argument can be made that this is just an outgrowth of SFJAZZ’s mandate, which not only calls for tribute to the music of a new legend every year, but also commissions the Collective’s rolling cast to create new music inspired by that legend. But as much as I am the biggest SFJAZZ fan in Greater Nippertown, I always get the sense that most of each year’s work involves finding something significant for everyone in the band to do. (“Collective,” right?) Contrariwise, the quintet Lovano & Douglas brought out to a packed-tight Zankel Music Center had a very specific hierarchy, with the jovial reed wizard and the intense trumpeter firmly in the lead and their supporting players knowing their occasionally-expansive supporting roles. That consistency wasn’t just traditional; it was also necessary, because the music they were about to pimp-slap us with was intricate enough without the musicians having to ask themselves, “Who am I now? Who am I on the next tune?”

(more…)