Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas Sound Prints Quintet
Ronnie Scott's, London

IT'S not often that a US band will begin their gig at a world-renowned jazz venue like Ronnie Scott's with one of its co-leaders declaring about their nation's president: “We're not the Americans who voted for the guy. We're part of the resistance!”

Such were the words of the New Jersey-born trumpeter Dave Douglas at the outset of the performance of the Sound Prints Quintet and they drew applause from almost all those present. The other co-leader, Italian-American tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, nodded in agreement and, with the quintet playing with such vibrant unity, the sentiments were clearly commonly held.

On drums was Joey Baron, the bassist was Malaysia-born, Western Australia-bred Linda Oh and the young pianist was St Louis prodigy Lawrence Fields.

Lovano's long, rasping solo on the opener Full Sun was followed by Douglas's hard-blown and blistering chorus in a colloquy with Baron's drums, while Oh's bass work discovered a sonic mine of scintillating invention, tracing out deep, fast-changing patterns.

In Dream State, dedicated to the great tenorist Wayne Shorter, Baron — the most sociable and communal of drummers — palavered with Fields who, in Douglas's tune Ups and Downs and the Shorter classic Juju from 1964, created a piano sound of his own. Rolling yet reflective, each note-cluster of his improvisation was a timbral thought-shape.

Douglas and Lovano have created thousands of performances worldwide and dozens of albums between them over the passing decades and, hearing the beauty and power of the trumpeter's searing horn and the plunging cadences of Lovano's saxophone, you could catch the cultural resistance seething from their every breath, withering Trumpery with each note.