When trumpeter Dave Douglas debuted his latest quintet a couple of years ago with the wonderful album Be Still (Greenleaf), a big part of its repertoire was composed of hymns and folk songs his mother had requested to be played at her memorial service—at the time, in 2011, she knew she was losing a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. On that recording the horn man enlisted the services of the superb singer Aoife O’Donovan of the progressive bluegrass outfit Crooked Still. But that project wasn’t the first time Douglas had been absorbed by American religious music. In the late 80s, while he toured with the Bread and Puppet Theater, he first heard and became interested in shape notes, a simple form of notation developed to allow untrained vocalists to tackle sacred music in striking four-part harmonies.
Present Joys by Douglas/Caine
