2015 · Album
Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival
Recorded 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival · Blue Note · Produced by Not specified in provided source material
Two Voices Dancing in Real Time
Douglas and Lovano spend the night inside the music, listening harder than playing.
Sound Prints captures Dave Douglas and Joe Lovano live at the 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival, and what you hear is two musicians in constant conversation. There's no showboating here. Both players dial back the virtuosity just enough to leave room for the other person to breathe and respond. The rhythm section—Lawrence Fields on piano, Linda Oh on bass, and Joey Baron on drums—stays precise but unhurried, giving the soloists space to develop ideas instead of racing to the next phrase. It's the kind of playing that rewards close listening; the longer you sit with it, the more small choices reveal themselves.
The album includes original material written by Douglas and Lovano alongside two new compositions by Wayne Shorter. You might expect the Shorter pieces to be the artistic centerpiece, and they carry weight, but Michael J. West wrote in JazzTimes that the real strength lies in the interplay itself—the counterpoint, the call-and-response—rather than any individual voice dominating. That observation cuts to the heart of what makes this record distinctive. This isn't a showcase for either musician's signature style; it's proof that they've developed enough trust and musical vocabulary together to think in real time.
Allmusic gave the album four stars and described it as walking the line between muscular post-bop and free-flowing, avant-garde playing. That balance is exactly what separates this from typical blowing sessions. The music never feels deliberately avant-garde or stubbornly straight-ahead. Instead, it shifts weight fluidly across ninety minutes, turning from structured melody into open exploration and back again without announcing the transition. If you've followed Douglas or Lovano separately over the years, this is worth hearing as a document of what they can do together when the stakes are real and the audience is present.
Who's playing
Linda May Han Ohdouble bass
Lawrence Fieldspiano
Joe Lovanotenor saxophone
Dave Douglastrumpet
Joey Barondrums
Where next?
More by Joe Lovano
All 45 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
