"FREE JAZZ" AT ALBRIGHT KNOX

Concert Review, Dave Douglas Quintet, Art of Jazz, November 9, 2015 (Buffalo Spree)

Whether called "free jazz," "experimental," "avant-garde," or "post-bop," Dave Douglas and his quintet of adepts are leaders of contemporary jazz and brought the audience in Albright Knox’s Auditorium to their feet in Saturday’s second installment of this season’s "Art of Jazz" Series.

Free jazz eschews jazz’s traditional rules of melody, harmony, and rhythm in favor of a loose structure of improvisation around a composition.  While there is a strong rhythmic undercurrent, time signatures, and a song’s chord structure change or may even be abandoned by some or all of the musicians at any given time. 

While this lack of structure can easily lead to collapse, Dave Douglas Quintet’s high-level professionals used the built solid, complex musical spaces.  The Dave Douglas Quintet is currently touring behind their recent Brazen Heart recording and features a lineup of young players who are each accomplished composers and bandleaders in their own right. The current iteration has been together …