Andrew Cyrille in a bass-less trio is becoming a thing, evidently. Only a year after the preeminent jazz drummer convened with Wadada Leo Smith and Bill Frisell for an inspired collaboration Lebroba, Cyrille again finds himself in the company of two other greats for another galvanizing performance that only a conference of longtime vets can achieve. Combining this time with pianist Uri Caine and trumpet player Dave Douglas, Devotion is doing it again, with completely different — but no less adventurous — artists.
And Devotion isn’t even led by Cyrille; this project is helmed by another trumpet icon in Douglas, and that’s where another dynamic comes into play: Douglas and Caine are rekindling the rapport built up over the 90s and 00s, often functioning as a duo. Now getting back together with Cyrille on board, it’s something old and something entirely new.
From the fusillade of piano chords at the beginning of “Curly,” it’s apparent something a little different is happening. That bass is not there and it ain’t coming, but once you get over its absence, the ears inevitably zero in on Cyrille and the unmatched way he shadows Caine through all the twisty turns with a lyrical voice of his own. Caine spins his presentation around a halting theme that sets the outer bounds of the song. At the end of the four minute performance, there’s so much that happened within those parameters by just drums and piano . .. Dave Douglas wasn’t even in this track (and, he didn’t even need to be).
When that instantly recognizable expressive trumpet dialect finally shows up on “D’Andrea,” it becomes a three-way communion of melody, harmony and an ever-fluid rhythm. When Douglas steps back, Caine takes things in another, Don Pullen-like direction. When Caine steps back, Cyrille is able to tell a whole story on little more than a cymbal.
Douglas brings his muted horn down as low as he can, but Caine and Cyrille uplift “Francis of Anthony” out of a plaintive state. Caine plays with much flair on “Miljøsang,” setting the stage for Douglas’ flights on this rapturous, repeating figure. “False Allegations” is a dark tango with a blues undercurrent, executed precisely from Dave Douglas’ plunged trumpet. The percussive style in Caine’s lively, almost stride piano finds a cohort with Cyrille on “Rose and Thorn,” suggesting the 1920’s but also looks forward.
With this collection of avant-garde credentials, it was probably destined for some songs to veer off outside, and a couple of them do. “Prefontaine” heads toward free territory but that does nothing to constrain the telepathy going on between Cyrille and Caine, and Douglas picks his spots wisely for nudging his way into that conversation. “Pacific” is also peppered with free moments, but this time Cyrille is the main catalyst for it.
“We Pray” is an articulate ballad with all the right punctuation put on it by Dave Douglas. The ending track “Devotion” is a pretty melody played with delicate whimsy, taking full advantage of the special mutuality between the three. That’s emblematic of the album as a whole: three strong musical personalities impose themselves onto these Douglas originals and end up with a riveting trio — like the last one Cyrille was involved with — that sounds like no other.
Devotion is now available for sale, via Dave Douglas’ fine Greenleaf Music imprint.
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