Dave Douglas: Gifts

Trumpeter Dave Douglas' talents as an improviser, composer and organizer are well known by now. In some ways the challenge for him is to find novel settings in which his abilities can be appreciated. If that is indeed an issue, then he has aced the test on Gifts, with a quartet that often sounds like a much larger ensemble, thanks to Rafiq Bhatia's widescreen guitar FX, man-of-the-moment tenor saxophone star James Brandon Lewis and drummer Ian Chang.

In terms of repertoire, too, Douglas has shuffled the deck. Alongside six originals, he looks back with four forward-facing interpretations of Duke Ellington alumnus Billy Strayhorn's classics. Bhatia and Chang—bandmates in the experimental/post-rock trio Son Lux and collaborators individually in other Douglas projects—bring vitality and edge to the trumpeter's familiar amalgam of fluency, imagination and feeling. Most notably, they provide a counterbalance to the often melancholy-tinged nature of the leader's themes, contributing percussive undercurrents or shimmering amorphous soundscapes. Bhatia's range in particular ensures that neither bass or keyboards are missed.

Lewis appears on five out of the ten cuts, where he affirms a winning rapport with Douglas. The passages where the muscular lyricism of his tenor intertwines with the brass man's sometimes wistful, sometimes celebratory musings are among the high points of the album. His features add another dimension as well, imbuing cuts like the curtain-raising title track, or the rocky "Seven Years Ago," with a passionate yearning and a hint of sorrow that is not quite the blues.

Pick of the covers is the perennial favorite "Take The A Train," enlivened by a funky guitar-driven beat and a concluding series of glorious trumpet-tenor swirls, alternating with rolling-clatter drum breaks. Douglas takes the remaining three numbers as a trio, casually insouciant over a popping guitar figure on "Rain Check," then dreamy on "Blood Count," before a serrated interjection and subsequent keening solo from Bhatia ups the ante, and draping the time-honored melody of "Day Dream" atop a menacing earthy tattoo.

With a consistency that puts many a postal service to shame, once again Douglas delivers the goods.

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