# Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas step up with Sound Prints at the Village vanguard: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/07/05/joe-lovano-and-dave-douglas-step-up-with-sound-prints-at-the-village-vanguard-videos-photos/
- Published: 2018-07-05T20:07:00+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Joe Lovano remarked that “it was the end of an era” as he and the Sound Prints
quintet he co-leads with Dave Douglas launched into a week at the Village Vanguard
in NYC. **

Days earlier the Vanguard’s matriarch **Lorraine Gordon** had passed away aged 95,
hence Lovano’s comment. Gordon, who, after divorce from Blue Note records co-founder
Alfred Lion, married Village Vanguard owner Max Gordon in 1949 (the club opened 
in 1935), had been actively involved with management of the Vanguard until late 
2012, the year she earned an NEA JazzMasters honour. Just after 9/11 I spoke to 
her for my then running _Jazzwise_ column ‘Stars and Stripes’, where she talked 
about how the New York jazz community were dealing with the fallout from the disaster.
She was an acerbic, principled woman and a lifelong, committed jazz fanatic.

Without further fanfare – Gordon was a stickler for sets starting promptly – Lovano
and Douglas dramatically commenced their set on the tight stage in the wedge shaped
corner of this tiny, hallowed venue, with contrapuntal, antiphonal, unaccompanied
horns. The two leaders alternated original compositions with settings of Wayne Shorter
classics (a Douglas arrangement of ‘Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum’ and Lovano’s recasting of ‘Juju’)
starting with the trumpeter’s ‘Dream State’ – the lead-off track from their recommended
recent release _Scandal_. Counterweighting the lines of trumpet and straight tenor
were a consistent feature of the intensely interwoven music which was stoked with
relevance and energy by the redoubtable **Joey Baron**, one of the most valuable
jazz drummers since Billy Higgins. Also superb was the insistent timing, rich tone
and concentrated ideas of bassist **Linda May Han Oh**, who had picked up the gong
for bassist of the year at the Jazz Journalists’ Awards a couple of hours earlier.

St Louis-born pianist and former Berklee student of Lovano, not to mention a tall
drink of water, was **Lawrence Fields**, whose rangy fingers maintained a dancing
pulse and chordal architecture reminiscent, at intervals, of Herbie Hancock. Despite
impassioned solos from all, it was the tunes that held the night, more so the originals
than the Wayne arrangements, notably Douglas’ memorable ‘Ups and Downs’. The latter,
a lilting ballad, began with an impressionistic descending/ascending line from the
tenor with contrary motion harmonization from trumpet, beautifully buoyed by the
rhythm section. Other Douglas odes that stood out were the eponymous CD title track,
more mournful than scandalous _per se_, a sad paean to these politically messed 
up times, which featured bulbous muted trumpet and sighing, controlled cynicism 
from Lovano. At a similar dirge-like tempo was ‘Libra’, an arresting theme with 
episodic changes reminiscent of Shorter’s adventurousness, succinctly rendered with
a pellucid piano intro. Saliently, and I’ve noticed this before with the capacious
book of John Zorn’s _Masada_, Douglas has all the music memorised before he hits
the bandstand.

![Sound-Prints 093-2](https://i0.wp.com/jazzwisemagazine.com/images/JUNE2018/Sound-
Prints_093-2.jpg?resize=640%2C426)

Lovano’s pieces included the cartwheeling ‘Full Sun’, which also encompassed complementary
and asymmetrical horn lines, a tensile bass chorus heralded a burrowing solo from
Lovano, holding his ungainly alp horn-like tenor aloft as he dug in. Paired with
this in the second set was ‘Full Moon’ – a more doleful, tidal affair, and a fine
feature for the Cleveland saxist’s precipitous approach, in which his gorgeous note
flurries were held in abeyance, thence released from bluesy reins. More upbeat and
permissive of punchy punctuation from Baron were ‘High Noon’ (which Lovano tackles
on G Mezzo Soprano on the CD) and the playful ‘Corner Tavern’ commemorating a saloon
in Milwaukee, which featured a stellar solo from May Han Oh. The bassist wore a 
stoic expression and meditative mien then occasionally cracked a smile in joyful
communication with the more readily grinning Baron. She’s been in the band since
its debut at the Vanguard in 2012, as have Fields and Baron – the unit grew out 
of Lovano and Douglas’ association with the SFJazz Collective in 2008 and a shared
appreciation of Shorter’s oeuvre which has expanded to fresh material in that ruminative
ilk. Sound Prints, riffing, I’m assuming, on Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ is an intense,
compelling unit with a buckled-in agenda, yet the charts, while defined, aren’t 
overly hermetic and work well as a collaborative suite.

In correspondence with longtime club manager Jed Eisenman (who started as a janitor
and dishwasher there 37 years ago as a teenager), there’s little fear of the Vanguard
shuttering anytime soon, since Lorraine’s legacy has been handed down to her daughter
Deborah. Just in case however, a souvenir band photo was taken for Jazzwise beneath
the legendary awning. The upbeat Jed who will remain steadfast as manager, commented
about his longtime professional relationship with the late proprietor: “Lorraine
Gordon was one of the last of the jazz Mohicans, a Runyonesque character you either
loved or hated – for my part I loved her very much.”

![Картинки по запросу Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas photos – Michael
Jackson](https://i0.wp.com/mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/
nprshared/201406/166161873.jpg?w=640)

**Story and photos – Michael Jackson**

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