Douglas leads a plethora of bands but has focused quite a bit on his "Quintet" and "Keystone" groups in recent years. Keystone is what I would call the trumpeter's "electric band" featuring trumpet, saxophone, fender rhodes piano, electric bass, drums and turntables. The group creates soundtracks for the silent films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, a relativly unknown star with a tragic story. While I enjoyed watching the films as I listened to the music initially, the compositions and performances work just as well on their own.
Next weekend Douglas will record the four days of Keystone performances at the Jazz Standard and have them available for download on his website within 24 hours of each performance. This is the same set up he used for the Quintet's Live At The Jazz Standard recordings done in December of 2006. This was a pretty unheard of undertaking in the jazz world though I'm pretty sure genres outside of that realm have been doing the same for some time now. Since jazz is such an "in the moment" art form I'm surprised that other artists haven't followed suit.
In any case, we're looking forward to the instant gratification of witnessing a couple of sets and then downloading them when we get home to re-live the moment over and over again!
