Dave Douglas Tiny Bell Trio

Even though name of the early Dave Douglas group, Tiny Bell Trio, might claim that the trumpeter, composer, and bandleader started his solo career on a little scale, quite contrary is true. Growing mainly because an ambitious single artist in the first to middle-’90s, New Yorker Douglas led many groups concurrently: his String Group, a quintet with violin, cello, bass, and drums; a sextet with an increase of standard jazz instrumentation; which trio, offering the trumpeter alongside drummer Jim Dark and guitarist Brad Shepik (who started his performing profession utilizing the surname Schoeppach, but evidently grew weary of correcting continual mispronunications). And even though a trio is actually smaller when compared to a quintet or sextet, Tiny Bell Trio didn’t accomplish its name because of this; rather, the moniker was produced from the tiny physical space the music group occupied during a continuing gig in the Bell Café in SoHo. Douglas experienced the gig 1st, playing inside a duo along with his then-wife, a Swiss accordionist, but following the couple split, Douglas kept to the small efficiency space and Dark and Shepik shortly joined up with him. Douglas’ world-spanning innovative explorations included Eastern Western european and Balkan music — actually, the duo along with his previous wife performed Romanian folk music — and, especially after the discharge from the Tiny Bell Trio (the band’s debut but Douglas’ second record as a head) for the Songlines label in 1994, the trio obtained a wider hearing audience because the trumpeter’s top automobile for exploration of Balkan and Eastern Western european tune forms. Such traditional music was, actually, among the group’s main influences — without doubt strengthened by the current presence of Shepik, at that time regarded by some observers to be always a linchpin of the brand new York downtown scene’s Balkan jazz contingent by virtue of his account in not merely Tiny Bell Trio but additionally Matt Darriau’s Paradox Trio, Pachora (with Dark), and his very own Commuters. But Tiny Bell Trio utilized Eastern Western european folk mainly being a releasing pad for Douglas as well as the band’s exclusive take on contemporary innovative jazz and modern improvisation — they didn’t strategy their folk-derived materials in a manner that could be regarded remotely conventional. And even though the majority of Tiny Bell Trio’s materials was penned by Douglas, the group’s albums also included “addresses” from a varied selection of composers; for instance, the band’s sophomore recording, the 1995 Hat Hut recording Constellations documented in Zurich as the music group was on the Western tour, presented inimitable variations of Herbie Nichols’ “The Gig,” Georges Brassens’ “Les Croquants,” and Robert Schumann’s “Vanitatus Vanitatum: Mit Laughter.” (The eponymous debut disk from the prior year experienced included Kurt Weill’s “The Drowned Lady,” “La Belle Saison,” and “Fille d’Acier” by Hungarian-French composer Joseph Kosma, “Arabesque for Clarinet and Piano” by French composer and Les Six member Germaine Tailleferre, the original Hungarian “Czardas,” and “Felijar” by Shepik.) Whether discovering music from traditional or modern resources, Tiny Bell Trio’s exclusive strategy was also produced from the band’s uncommon instrumentation, missing a bass. This construction pressured the players to reinvent the customary functions of their devices inside a jazz trio, moving soloist and accompanist functions and using prolonged techniques to offer textural and timbral range. One antecedent was the trio of guitarist Expenses Frisell, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and drummer Paul Motian, but a contemporaneous “bass-less” idea experienced become almost de rigueur for Jim Dark, whose other NY downtown ensembles included Human being Experience (two reeds, acoustic guitar, drums) and Ellery Eskelin’s trio with Andrea Parkins and Dark (tenor saxophone, accordion/sampler, drums). Tiny Bell Trio was probably the most cellular of Dave Douglas’ operating sets of the ’90s, and after outgrowing the Bell Café gig, the music group toured broadly in both USA and European countries, providing many target audience members making use of their first possibility to knowledge Douglas — and Dark and Shepik — within a live placing. Actually, two of the group’s four albums had been recorded go on Western european tours, these Constellations from 1995 and the 3rd Tiny Bell Trio record, Live in European countries, recorded in holland and Belgium in 1996 and released the next year for the Arabesque label. As Douglas embarked on extra tasks as both head and collaborator his profile continuing to develop, culminating in multiple Down Defeat poll wins as well as the signing of the major-label agreement with RCA before the discharge of his acclaimed discovery sextet tribute to Mary Lou Williams, Spirit on Spirit, in 2000. The preceding season would start to see the last discharge by Tiny Bell Trio, Tracks for Wandering Souls, on the wintertime & Wintertime label; it had been the fourth Small Bell Trio disk, however the 13th for Douglas being a head.