Though Detroit’s Shigeto is best known today as an electronic musician and producer, he’s actually a product of the New School in New York. Those foundational chops no doubt came in handy when he found himself at a session with the rangy, always exciting Dave Douglas and his new electro-acoustic quartet High Risk.
In this space, as “Molten Sunset” makes abundantly clear, beats blend with sharp improvisation, samples and manipulated sounds with hard-crafted groove, mystery and funk and things unexpected. It’s an exciting race to the edge of jazz’s modern frontier, and no place for the foolhardy or unprepared.
Shigeto, having never played with Dave Douglas before, met the challenge. Together with High Risk for only a single session at Brooklyn’s Bunker Studio, they emerged with a new album that’s due on Douglas’ Greenleaf Music imprint later this spring. This expanded edition of High Risk, with Shigeto again providing electronic textures, will make their live debut on April 1 at Detroit’s Trinosophes.
It represents the lastest musical twist in an intriguing journey filled with them for Dave Douglas, whose roving creativity has already led him to an early association with John Zorn but also the Trisha Brown Dance Company, to covering Mary Lou Williams but also exploring Balkan improvisations with his own Tiny Bell Trio, to referencing Rufus Wainwright, Bjork and Thom Yorke but also playing with Bill Frisell and Lee Konitz.
High Risk’s thrilling blend of melody and deep groove is completed by Mark Guiliana, a drummer who has worked with Brad Mehldau (last year’s striking Mehliana: Taming the Dragon), Avishai Cohen and David Bowie (on the terrific single “Sue”), among many others. Bassist Jonathan Maron is a product of the Groove Collective, and his previous collaborators include Meshell Ndegeocello and Kurt Rosenwinkel.
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