Alloy the band started as a vehicle for Dave Douglas in cahoots with the now passed Roy Campbell Jnr and Baikida Carroll. Douglas was the then greenhorn alongside those masters of free. In this incarnation the roles are reversed, with Douglas the senior to David Adewumi and new kid on the block, Alexandra Ridout. This is austere, disciplined music, perhaps reflecting Douglas’ current mood, where so many of his values, musical and social, must feel under threat.
The first two cuts set the tone: ‘Standing Watch’ is a tight, almost second line blues, resonant of Gary Burton and Carla Bley’s Genuine Tong Funeral, the state of readiness resonating with Rembrandt’s painting The Night Watch. Brennan does the Burton fluid thing while the steadfast…

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