DAVE DOUGLAS - GERMANY 1999
July 1, 2009 – 4:10 am
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DAVE DOUGLAS
Speaking Truth To Power Modern Music Protest [no label, 1CD]
Live at the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Germany, October 15, 1999. Very good stereo FM broadcast.
“Angered by a newspaper article on the rising fortunes of weapon makers during the NATO war on Yugoslavia, I decided to write music celebrating positive protest against the misuse of money and power. Each piece is inspired by and dedicated to artists and activists who have creatively challenged authority, sometimes endangering their own lives, but inspiring the rest of us to resist.”
- Dave Douglas, May 2001.
This is Dave Douglas’ Witness album from 2001, premiered live in concert in Germany two years before the album’s release.
The show is incomplete as several tracks performed were not broadcast, for example, for Edward Said. It has been a long road since jazz first blew a fresh note in protest against racism and bigotry in the ’50s [Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite] and even longer since Billie Holiday sang about lynching in America’s south with Strange Fruit.
Witness gets lost in world history and offers observations of real people from different parts of the globe still fighting against injustice. Hence, the title of this album - to speak truth to power, using modern jazz as a form of protest.
Unfortunately, the listening experience is mixed. On the one hand, the minimalist style - nine men playing like there are only two on stage - could be interpreted as an attempt to reproduce ennui or apathy toward the causes of these unfortunate victims, as it is in life. Douglas dedicated songs to prisoners of conscience - Naguib Mahfouz, Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Nawal el-Saadawi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Eqbal Ahmad and Chandralekha. Each song drags around in search of a melody. The listener finds it hard to listen just as it has been hard for these men and women to have their cases heard in public. The struggle becomes the issue.
Douglas however offers nothing new to jazz as a protest idiom. If you recall Max Roach’s We Insist: Freedom Now Suite or Albert Ayler’s Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe or Archie Shepp’s Things Have Got To Change, each of these albums hit with the force of a hurricane. It left you breathless. This was something new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Like the impact of a new idea - that racism was evil.
You don’t get much by way of the music on Douglas’ Witness. In fact, the playing is so standard, so polite, so accommodating, so friendly that you are irritated. Where’s the balls? The sense of outrage has been co-opted into co-operating with the authorities to not protest too loudly. Think non-governmental organizations without teeth.
When actually jazz, or any other music, should take a note from India’s anti-colonial leader, Gandhi, who substituted violent protest with a form of non-violent non-cooperation that could unite people to make a difference. Generally, Gandhi preached a protestor should practice boycott. Boycott their products, boycott their activities, boycott their people. That would send a non-violent and peaceful message that you disagree.
Otherwise, it’s just another show. - Michael Cheah
Note: Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality MP3s - sample rate of 192 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.
These tracks are no longer available for download. Kindly email us at [email protected] if you want to download them at a later date.
01. Introduction [by German radio announcer]
02. A Catalog of Scenes: Mahfouz - for Naguib Mahfouz
03. Child Of All Nations - for Pramoedya Ananta Toer
04. Introduction
05. Woman at Point Zero - for Nawal el-Saadawi
06. Introduction
07. Sozaboy - for Ken Saro-Wiwa
08. Introduction
09. Creative Dissidence - for Eqbal Ahmad
10. Introduction
11. One More News - for Chandralekha
12. Introduction
13. Episode - for Tasmina Nasrim
The Witness group:
Dave Douglas - trumpet
Chris Speed - saxophone & clarinet
Joshua Roseman - trombone
Erik Friedlander - cello
Mark Feldman - violin
Bryan Carrott - vibraphone, marimba
Drew Gress - bass
Ikue Mori - electronic percussion
Michael Sarin - drums
Click on the link to order Dave Douglas
7 Responses to “DAVE DOUGLAS - GERMANY 1999”
i remember asking you about this, but you said bigo never offered till now.
i have this album by tim berne called saturation point and speed is on it.
been enjoying my b-day!
best,
ed
By Ed Saad on Jul 1, 2009
thank you,
what a great line-up!
By lc on Jul 1, 2009
Dave Douglas keeps coming up with musical concepts that I read about, think, “Well, maybe this will float my boat”. This concert being a case in point. But, (without denigrating him as a musician) I keep finding his projects to lack something compelling. The guy certainly can play, and he obviously is respected by his peers, but something’s seriously missing. Having said that, I’ll keep giving him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll do my best to listen to this with an open ear.
By Slidewell on Jul 2, 2009
Thank you so much you made my afternoon
this is one most impressive JAZZ cd I hear in long time
Once again THANK YOU
Andres from CA
By Andres on Aug 28, 2010
Thank you very much for making this available again.
I appreciate all that you offer, but prefer jazz recordings.
By Teaberry J on Feb 7, 2014
Could you please re-upload it againb, please?
I sent you an email a while back, but I have had no reply at all.
Thanks in advance.
Regards from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Hugo
By Hugo on Sep 26, 2018
yes, I’ve never heard this one, I saw them in Chicago, Woman at Point Zero is a great cut.
By David on Dec 31, 2018