Entertainment Weekly (1/23/04, p.101) - "[Frisell and Caine] cast lovely sonic halos around Douglas' pungent tones. There's an intelligent cohesion to these wide-ranging tracks, and just the right tension between composition and improvisation." - Rating: A-
CMJ (1/26/04, p.20) - "[O]ne of jazz's brightest lights...[Douglas straddles] the line between artistic adventure and traditional accessibility."
Dave Douglas Quintet: Dave Douglas (trumpet); Chris Potter (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet); Uri Caine (Fender Rhodes piano); James Genus (acoustic & electric basses); Clarence Penn (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Bill Frisell (guitar).
Recorded at Right Track Studio, New York, New York in January 2003.
In the same way that trumpeter Dave Douglas's THE INFINITE hearkened back to the sound of Miles Davis's first classic quintet, and FREAK IN looked to Davis's early-1970s electric fusion, STRANGE LIBERATION recalls Davis circa NEFERTITI and IN A SILENT WAY. Also like Davis, Douglas surrounds himself with only the best musicians going--saxophonist and bass clarinetist Chris Potter, drummer Clarence Penn, and bassist James Genus are in the lineup here. The cool, often funky sound of Uri Caine's Fender Rhodes and the incomparable electric guitar work of Bill Frisell flesh out Douglas's complex, ever impressive compositions.
But Douglas is by no stretch an imitator. Building on Davis's inventions to create fresh music that intrigues, challenges, shifts, and soars, Douglas has made a classic jazz album for the 2000s. The leader's writing and playing make use of traditional bop and minimalist concepts (especially on "A Single Sky" and the architectural ups and downs of the title track). With Potter, Douglas winds contrapuntal melodies around the rhythm section, which, in turn, pushes and opens the music to abet the mercurial, atmospheric work of Caine and Frisell. This is music that builds on the past while looking to the future--it's modern jazz of the first order.
