Three New Works by Dave Douglas and his Electric Sextet Keystone

Wednesday May 19, 2010

THREE ALBUMS TO BE RELEASED THIS YEAR – ALL INSPIRED BY THE NEW MULTI-MEDIA COLLABORATION BY DOUGLAS AND FILMMAKER BILL MORRISON, SPARK OF BEING

Greenleaf Music will release three albums by composer and trumpeter Dave Douglas this year. All were inspired by Douglas’s recent collaboration with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison on the new multi-media project Spark of Being, and were written by Douglas for his electric sextet Keystone. The first release, the soundtrack to the aforementioned film, will be available exclusively through Greenleaf Music on June 22. Two additional releases, Expand and Burst, will follow later this year and feature jazz performances by Douglas and Keystone, exploring and interpreting the themes of the film.

Spark of Being, which world premiered on April 24 at Stanford University’s Lively Arts, combines a re-interpretation of the Frankenstein story featuring new, archival and distressed footage on film by experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison with an original score by Douglas. Spark of Being was commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts as the centerpiece of a campus-wide “Art + Invention” project throughout the 2009–10 season, and was also the culmination of a multi-stage residency at Stanford by Douglas and Morrison.

Expand is a fully realized new jazz album by Douglas and Keystone. It will be released by Greenleaf Music and distributed through traditional music channels on August 24. Greenleaf will follow with the release of Burst on September 21, which, like Expand, further develops the musical ideas of Spark of Being, without the parameters of a soundtrack composition. All three albums will also be available in a full box set on September 21.

“Spark of Being began its life as a meditation on humanity and technology,” said Douglas. “Through the lens of contemporary music and film, Bill Morrison and I were both interested in a collaboration that showed the various uses for invention, from the quirky to the profound, from the benign to the murderous.”

“I’ve always felt that no matter how complex the music gets, it should always be built from the smallest and simplest of ideas. Beginning with a few small motifs suggested by the materials Bill showed me, the score for Spark of Being was conceived with the musicians in Keystone very much in mind.”

“ Dave Douglas is one of today’s most celebrated jazz trumpeters…” (NPR). A two-time Grammy nominated musician and composer, the New York based Douglas has released more than 30 recordings since his 1993 debut. Of his many projects, the electric sextet Keystone is one of his most adventurous. Inspired by films and written for films both new and old, Keystone features Dave Douglas on trumpet, Marcus Strickland on tenor/soprano sax, Adam Benjamin on Fender Rhodes, Brad Jones on electric bass, Gene Lake on drums, and DJ Olive on turntables. They have two previously released recordings, Moonshine (Greenleaf, 2007) and their debut Keystone (Greenleaf, 2006).

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GREENLEAF MUSIC is an independent music company and web store. Douglas co-founded the label in 2004 and in addition to his own music, has since released 15 recordings from artists including Donny McCaslin, Nicole Mitchell, Nels Cline, Kneebody and Michael Bates. One of the first labels to stream their entire catalogue online for free, Greenleaf is proud to announce an updated subscription series, allowing intimate access to their artists including the entire streamable catalogue, 10+ hours of unreleased music, artist meet and greets, and more. The label supports artists fully and fairly, producing CDs, downloads, sheet music, subscriptions, and a blog.

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