Dave Douglas, Elan Mehler & Dominique Eade - If There Are Mountains (2023)

"If There Are Mountains" is the first album by Dave Douglas and Elan Mehler as co-leaders, setting poetry and specifically haiku within the context of improvising music.

The lyrical arrangements feature celebrated vocalist Dominique Eade throughout the album. Douglas and Mehler composed the music of all thirteen tracks between themselves, including four never-before-heard songs: Douglas’ “Arms Folded to the Moon”, “A Thicket of Summer Grass”, and “Life” plus Mehler’s “Barn’s Burnt Down”.

"I heard those first two words, “May rains,” in an ascending interval of a fifth. A declaration and a harbinger and the rest of the song followed in minutes. I loved building these compositions out of such coded input. It felt like a key to a secret world. When I heard what Dave had been composing in our first rehearsal, it sent me reeling (and back to the drawing board on my own tunes). Dave is well-known in certain circles for his fastidious charts, but not in the way you would expect. There’s a movement in improvised music toward the overly elaborate composition. Mixed meter, thorough composition, elaborate counterpoint, and huge stylistic changes are all commonplace. In contrast, Dave’s compositions are generally very simple but also very precise. This rigor of attention is actually freeing for the musician, because the departure point is so clear. Something in Dave’s style has a clear consonance with the haiku form: "Start here. Jump."

What an incredible band we’ve pulled together for this record! John, Dominique, Simón and Dayeon have such unique perspectives and voices, and it was humbling to see how they threw themselves into these compositions. This band coalesced around the initial gig in Denver in 2018. Dave and Dominique had known each other for many years. I had just met Dominique at a Lee Konitz show, and we subsequently played a duo show. Dominique is a bit of a legend around Boston. She’s been a mentor and a teacher to many if not most of the outstanding vocalists of the last couple of decades, and her years of work with Ran Blake are a continual astonishment.

Working on these pieces made me think of one of my favorite poets and song writers, Adam McBride-Smith. Adam has a real gift for evocative natural depictions. I had set to music a poem of his, “Here on the Plains,” for a project we released together in 2010. I knew it would be perfect for this band. OnceI started tinkering with it, I reached out to Adam about working on something new, and he wrote the astonishing lyrics to “Wolf Orchard.”

The overwhelming emotion I get out of listening again to the record, almost a year after we got out of the studio, is gratitude. I’m writing these notes in June 2020, and the world feels VERY unbalanced and frightening. It’s such a balm to feel thankful. To feel connected—with these poets, these amazing musicians, the music, the Newvelle Community, Marc Urselli and our home at East Side Sound, the visual artists who lend us their work every year… It all spins out into something larger and it alights on an evening like this, like an enormous gift." (Elan Mehler)

Dave Douglas, trumpet
Elan Mehler, piano
Dominique Eade, vocals
John Gunther, saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet
Simón Willson, bass
Dayeon Seok, drums

Tracklist
01. If There Are Mountains
02. We Saw You Off
03. Even a Nameless Stream
04. Wolf Orchard
05. Haiku
06. Here on the Plains
07. Village of No Bells
08. The Spring Current
09. With Your Singing
10. Arms Folded to the Moon
11. A Thicket of Summer Grass
12. Barn's Burnt Down
13. Life