Home » Jazz Articles » Dave Holland
Jazz Articles about Dave Holland
Dave 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 ...
Continue ReadingDave 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 ...
Continue ReadingDave 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 ...
Continue ReadingDave Holland: San Francisco, CA, February 7-10, 2013
by Harry S. Pariser
Dave Holland ResidencySan Francisco Jazz CenterSan Francisco, CAFebruary 7-10, 2013 Dave Holland was beaming ear to ear. And he had every reason to be, as the 66-year-old bassist was center stage helping to inaugurate a magnificent new hall, the showplace of the San Francisco Jazz Festival. The past two weeks had marked the first that the center had been open, and while a multitude of acts had performed, these had been special as opposed to ...
Continue ReadingDave Holland Big Band: Philadelphia, December 11, 2010
by Dylan McGuire
Dave Holland Big BandPainted Bride Art CenterPhiladelphia, PADecember 11, 2010 Bassist and jazz music legend Dave Holland says he is a believer in the communal spirit of music and, judging by the scope of talent in his Big Band--as well as the enthusiastic capacity crowd at his shows at the Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia on Dec. 11--the community is happy to embrace his vision.Although it only makes a few appearances ...
Continue ReadingDave Holland: Passing the Torch
by Dylan McGuire
Standing onstage in the auditorium of the Philadelphia School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), a lanky, grey-haired gentleman stands by the piano, directing a small group of student musicians playing Herbie Hancock's “Cantaloupe Island." He stops the song during the trumpet solo and says to the student in a British accent, “Did you listen to the recording?" The student looks at his feet and replies, “No." “You always have to listen to the ...
Continue ReadingDave 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 ...
Continue Reading
