Dave Douglas Speaks About Spark Of Being

Thursday June 17, 2010

Dave Douglas and Keystone produce a Spark of Being

EyeWeekly.com
By Chris Bilton

Few would disagree that experimental composer/saxophonist John Zorn is probably the hardest-working man in modern jazz. But running a close second is trumpeter Dave Douglas, Zorn’s frequent collaborator and long-time bandmate in the greatly revered avant-klezmer group Masada. Since the early 1990s, when Douglas’ first solo outings stormed the downtown NYC scene, the inventive composer and highly nuanced improviser has pushed all manner of boundaries by combining post-bop traditions with electroacoustic aesthetics, incorporating DJs and programming into his ensembles, working in a myriad of genres and leading some seriously scorching bands. In his latest venture, Douglas and his jazz-plus-DJ outfit Keystone have teamed up with filmmaker Bill Morrison (of experimental masterpiece Decasia fame) for a cinematic reworking of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein entitled Spark of Being. EYE WEEKLY spoke with Douglas to find out just what the heck it’s all about.

How did the Spark of Being film and working with Bill Morrison come together?
We both started making this film Spark of Being at the same time. We both started from zero and discussed what the theme would be and the form it was going to take right from the beginning. So, in the same way that we started together, I would send him music clips and he would send me film clips. We both built it up together with this symbiotic relationship between the music and the film.

Read the entire interview here

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