Jazz Articles
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Kenny Barron / Dave Holland Trio featuring Johnathan Blake: Without Deception
by Mike Jurkovic
No matter the many miles and quantum number of life's triumphs and travails that have visited them since their last encounter, Kenny Barron and Dave Holland walk into a studio and instantly pick up whence they last met. But these two old cronies are not just killing time shooting the proverbial you-know-what. They have set out to interpret and shape time on their own terms, and not vice versa, two intrinsic elements of creation that still make their ...
read moreDave Holland: Uncharted Territories
by Don Phipps
Bassist extraordinaire Dave Holland's album Uncharted Territories embraces the avantgarde creed of exploration and innovation over chord progressions. Along with master musicians saxophonist Evan Parker, keyboardist Craig Taborn, and percussionist Ches Smith, Holland and crew fashion one sonic twist after the next in a progression of 23 tracks, 20 of which are recorded improvisations. The “double" album allows each of the musicians plenty of room to awe the listener with soundscapes that seem to dissolve and reform. Light ...
read moreAziza: Aziza
by Dan Bilawsky
How do you define Aziza? Is it a collective-minded outfit? A supergroup? An offshoot or variant on previous gatherings? An archetype for musical synergy? A nod-in-name to African mythology and spiritual discovery? Yes, it's all of that. But why not avoid the traps and trappings involved with classification and just cut to the chase: Aziza is an artistically headstrong and muscular powerhouse, plain and not-so-simple. Would you expect anything less from the combination of bassist Dave Holland, saxophonist Chris Potter, ...
read moreDave Holland: Prism
by John Kelman
Two instruments that bassist Dave Holland has rarely incorporated into his projects have been piano and guitar, his only guitar-centric album coming sixteen years after his first release as a leader, Conference of the Birds (ECM, 1973), when he recruited Kevin Eubanks for a particularly powerful set on Extensions (ECM, 1989). It took Holland even longer--nearly a quarter- century, in fact--before piano first surfaced on Pass It On (Dare2, 2008), with the recently deceased Mulgrew Miller, though Holland would subsequently ...
read moreDave Holland: Prism
by Dan Bilawsky
Bassist Dave Holland first became a leader-on-record with Conference Of The Birds (ECM, 1973), a now-classic outré quartet session. That initial leader date portrayed Holland as a restless seeker, willing and eager to explore the inner workings of group dynamics and the outer reaches of convention, and he's done little to alter that perception of himself in the intervening years. Holland has, with band after band and album after album, continually broadened his outlook, creating a vast and enviable body ...
read moreDave Holland: Prism
by J Hunter
Although über-bassist Dave Holland made his bones with one of Miles Davis' early electric bands, the lion's share of the British native's own music has come from the acoustic side of the scale. As such, longtime Holland fans will receive a major shock with their first listen to Prism. Those fans will need open ears and patience; everyone else just needs a volume control that goes to 11. The opening Fender Rhodes vamp on Kevin Eubanks' “The ...
read moreDave Holland & Pepe Habichuela: Hands
by Raul d'Gama Rose
The music on Hands, featuring stellar turns primarily from Spanish guitarist Pepe Habichuela and British-born bassist Dave Holland, is quite simply one of the most captivating on record. It is completely an alternative to style, to mere virtuosity, and to angelic grace and charm, as dictated by a muse. This music is the epitomé of the darkly beautiful magnetism of duende, and comes not from the hands and the fingers of the musicians, but rather from their innermost being--from the ...
read moreDave Holland & Pepe Habichuela: Hands
by John Kelman
Sometimes the best indicator of an artist's versatility is in the side projects they accept. Bassist Dave Holland's career could hardly be described as monolithic, with his discography as a leader--ranging from his quintet (Critical Mass (Dare2, 2006)) to his big band (Overtime (Dare2, 2005)) --nothing short of but exemplary. Still, some of the most unexpected revelations have come on peripheral dates, such as Mid-Eastern-informed Thimar (ECM, 1998), with Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem and British reed man John Surman, or ...
read moreDave Holland & Pepe Habichuela: Hands
by Chris May
Centuries old, an accretion of musics absorbed by north Indian migrants as they travelled, one stream through the Balkans, the other through the Maghreb, towards their final desination in southern Spain, flamenco is not easy for a non-Gypsy convincingly to perform. Intricately codified, rich in lore and tradition, its broad mannerisms can be mimicked quickly enough, but to inhabit its soul, its cante jondo (deep song), takes much, much longer. Some would say a lifetime, more or less.
read moreDave Holland Octet: Pathways
by Alain Londes
With bassist Dave Holland setting up the foundation for the band, during the live taping of Pathways at New York's Birdland in 2009, the rest of the octet paves the way for baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan to develop the title track in the similar vein to his earlier big band recording What Goes Around (ECM, 2002).
At first it's possible to imagine listening to the entire big band due to the fullness of the sound. Some of its core musicians ...
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