Dave Douglas is a well-established jazz player who has been an active performer since the mid-'80s and who has recorded with a number of influential ensembles, including John Zorn's Masada Quartet and his own Balkan music group, Tiny Bell Trio. Zach Saginaw—who records under his middle name, Shigeto—composes lightly psychedelic instrumental hip-hop and has released a number of records via the label Ghostly International. The pair first met last year, via a Red Bull Music Academy event that paired musicians—Nels Cline, Wadada Leo Smith, Petra Haden, among others—in a series of solo and duet improvisations. And while they aren't necessarily obvious collaborators, the two hit it off.
Not a traditionalist by any stretch, Douglas has recorded with electronic musicians throughout his career, most recently with his group, Keystone, but also as far back as the 1997 live album Sanctuary. High Risk's self-titled debut album has a distinct character that sets it apart from those releastes, though. In the past, Douglas's work with electronics has often involved DJs and performers—DJ Olive, Ikue Mori, Jamie Saft, to name a few—that used samplers, record players, and electronic percussion to manipulate recorded sounds. Nestled into ensembles that were driven by more traditional instrumentation, these musicians created elastic textures that augmented the chaotic and improvisatory nature of the music.
High Risk is much more serene and meditative. The quartet—which also includes drummer Mark Guiliana and bassist Jonathan Maron—blends rhythm, melody, and atmosphere in equal measure. The musicians drift seamlessly between implied and solid grooves, with Saginaw adding drones, percussive loops, and live effect processing. There are no chording instruments like piano or guitar. Instead, it's Saginaw who provides the music's harmonic grounding via a series of static keyboard loops and sampled textures. His contributions are often reverb drenched and ethereal—think the dreamiest moments of '80s ECM records re-interpreted via Ableton Live and digital sound processing.
Over the course of the album's seven compositions, the quartet hit on a number of fusion jazz touchstones—*On the Corner-*era Miles Davis ("Household Item"), the Headhunters ("Etiquette"), John Hassel's Fourth World music ("High Risk"), and even the mellow minimalism of Chicago post-rock ensemble, Tortoise. But even though the music shifts style and perspective, the mood is uniform and singular.
High Risk is not so much an album of jazz augmented by electronic instrumentation, but an album performed by players that are very conscious of and interested in electronic music. It's not just Saginaw dithering with a laptop, but also Guiliana mimicking delay trails on his kit or emulating the oddball swing of chopped and spliced rhythms. Over top, Douglas' playing is generally very mellow—reinforcing the ambient and meditative aspects of the music.
It's a special challenge to perform jazz—or perform among jazz musicians—while using electronics. Unlike a saxophone or piano, there's no defined role for a laptop, synthesizer, or sampler. Your presence is always experimental. More importantly, if you're a musician coming from a dance music background, you're typically arriving from a very exacting and non-group oriented form of composition.
So, it's a credit to Saginaw that he can hang in there with musicians who have spent the majority of their careers as free improvisers. High Risk's music values stasis over sudden shifts, but by slotting in a loop or processing the playing of his bandmates, Saginaw often manages to steer the mood of compositions and also create a sense of dialog with his bandmates. It's slo-mo, but spontaneous.
