1996 · Album
Serpentine
Recorded January 30, 1996 · Songlines · Produced by Not credited
Two Musicians Finding Their Way in the Dark
Douglas's iron chops stand up to Bennink's onslaught, though Bennink also spends time clogging wooden shoes on concrete.
By 1996, Dave Douglas was still in his twenties, establishing himself as a trumpeter willing to play outside the usual hard-bop vocabulary. Han Bennink, decades his senior, was already a veteran of European free jazz and a player known for unpredictable energy. Serpentine (1996) captures their one studio meeting: thirteen short pieces, mostly originals, recorded in a single session at a Dutch studio with the unlikely name of Rent-a-Cow.
What's striking is how evenly matched they sound. Douglas doesn't defer to Bennink's seniority or his reputation for controlled chaos. Instead he meets him directly, using his trumpet's brightness and harmonic clarity to push back against Bennink's drumming—which ranges from swinging propulsion to prepared-instrument textures, literal wooden-shoe clogging on the studio floor. These aren't polite exchanges. The music is combative in the best way, two strong voices arguing without pretense.
AllMusic's Joslyn Layne noted it captures "good interaction" without overstating its place in either musician's catalog. It's not Douglas's breakthrough, and it's not a Bennink masterpiece. What it is: a solid, sometimes surprising document of two improvisers who understood each other's language well enough to take real risks. For listeners curious about Douglas's early years or Bennink's work outside his best-known projects, it's worth the time.
