Modern-day artiste engagé: Dave Douglas
The voice over the phone is calm, almost bland, matter-of-fact. Dave Douglas, 41, pre-eminent trumpeter of the last decade – with 14 working groups in a dizzying array of genres – has always been thoughtful in an almost professorial way. His cool survey of global arts and politics is rooted in a life of travel and discovery. He is the quintessential modern-day artiste engagé.
Ask him about the effect on music-making of instant digital access to recorded music in a globalized planet, and the answer comes out of left field – without flinching at either the politically correct or the market mentality.
“I think ‘globalism’ is a dangerous word, because music is maybe the most personal and the most sensual of art forms. You don’t have jazz without Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. You wouldn’t say, ‘Ah the great bebop period’ and not mention the great Charlie Parker. I feel great music and advances in music are made by individuals. So that’s the danger of thinking, ‘Hey, it’s one world, we’re all coming together.’ Yes, that’s true but it still takes inspired individuals and teamwork.
“I think it’s the word ‘jazz’ that causes more trouble for people. Once you put a word on something, you’ve kind of by definition limited what it can be in a creative sense. On the other hand, jazz has come to mean music that was developed out of the African-American community. So it’s very important not to overlook that and realize how important that legacy is to all of us all around the world, and to reflect back the richness of the lessons the music has brought us. And that is regardless of genre and style.”
Coming out of the New York “downtown” scene led by John Zorn, Douglas inhabits a world of styles – from Balkan music to Zorn’s Masada to his accordion-based Charms of the Night Sky group to electronics to straight-ahead jazz.
On the radical changes in jazz forms in a shrinking planet: “The thing that makes jazz great art and universal is that it can be appreciated by anyone, that it can adapted and learned, and it can grow with exposure around the world. If the music wasn’t so rich this wouldn’t be happening. Of course, from a cultural standpoint, that creates a lot of new frictions and that’s all normal and healthy.
“As for the word ‘jazz,’ a new word will come along. I feel the creative impulse in the music is getting stronger, if anything, and influencing more and more people. And history is moving forward light years at a time, and backwards as well. Connections are being made to music from Africa that goes back thousands of years, and to South America and Southeast Asia.”
The poll-winner as best musician and trumpeter of recent years is in high demand around the globe. Always politically minded, as an artist Douglas now grapples with perilous post-9/11 times.
“The biggest impact on me is that I feel very self-conscious as an American when I travel abroad. And on stage I always feel like I should say something, because (the war) is such an unjust and dishonest situation, the manipulation of money and power. When you say these things as someone from the U.S. everyone applauds wildly, so thrilled to know there are people thinking about the situation here.
“Then you come back to the United States and you realize that the media coverage of ‘the facts’ are very paltry. There’s just this haze for what passes as information. It’s hard to get the facts and then once you hear them, the way they’re presented has such a tilted ear towards the needs of government. That’s very difficult and sad. So beyond trying to un-elect George Bush in November there’s not that much that we can do. That’s just the way it feels.
“You know, we each have our place in the way we contribute to the world. So I do feel that as artists and public figures, who are being paid to be ourselves, it’s important to say something.”
One effect of the 9/11 chill is that “there’s an impulse to say we should have art and culture and entertainment because we shouldn’t be talking about what the government is doing. Because we should trust them, papa’s got us covered. It’s a dangerous period and they’re going to take care of us and we shouldn’t ask too many questions. That’s the atmosphere. It’s a tough atmosphere for the arts and for entertainment it’s probably better than ever.”
His Vacation Blues band features trombonist Roswell Rudd, the 68-year-old link to 60s avant-garde and free jazz (from Archie Shepp to Enrico Rava), an “outcat” who has aged gracefully. The group grew out of a concert they did during residencies at Harvard University in 2003, with Douglas gathering a rhythm section of Brad Jones, drummer for the downtown-hip Jazz Passengers, and bassist Barry Altschul an old colleague of Rudd’s.
“The program was called Beyond Recall, the name of a great Herbie Nichols tune. And then it seemed to good to let it pass. There was so much fun.” They mixed a bunch of songs by Nichols, the quirky unheralded 50s piano visionary, with some of Rudd’s and “it’s really turned into a band with its own vocabulary.”