Strange Liberation is the 21st album by jazztrumpeterDave Douglas.[1] It was released on the Bluebird imprint of RCA Records in 2004. The album features the Dave Douglas Quintet plus guest guitarist Bill Frisell. The album received widespread critical acclaim and did well on the jazz album charts, reaching number three on Billboard's and number one on CMJ's.
In the book Essential Jazz: the First 100 Years, the album is called "a fascinating amalgam of 4/4 swing grooves and rock-based electric textures reminiscent of Miles Davis's electric music of the late 1960s".[9] John Kelman from All About Jazz counters that opinion by recounting that while Douglas's earlier release The Infinite did hearken back to late 1960s Davis, this release moves "completely into Dave Douglas territory". He concludes his review saying that the album is "another fine entry in a body of work that strives to break down barriers by eliminating preconceptions as to what music should or shouldn't be".[10]
Dylan Hicks of City Pages call the album Douglas's "strongest effort" since signing with Bluebird,[11] similarly Chris Dahlen of Pitchfork calls the album "a set of music that's simply one of the best written, paced and performed works in his catalog",[2]inThe New York Times Ben Ratliff calls it "the best album in several years by Dave Douglas",[3] and Thom Jurek from Allmusic writes "in its imagination and depth it is one of the high marks of Douglas' thus far prolific career".[8]
In All About Jazz, Marc Meyers says the album "explod[es] in a veritable riot of colors, moods, idioms, and rhythms".[4]Billboard named the album a 'Critics' Choice' with Dan Ouellette calling it "a reflective, whimsical and driving quintet date". He goes on to refer to the Douglas/Frisell pairing as a "perfect tonal match". Thomas Conrad writes in JazzTimes that the album "possesses, in spades, that quality of immediacy essential to jazz".[6]
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