The Bottom Line: Dave Holland Quintet in Chicago and Minneapolis

 Contributed by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor

“This is post modern poetic singing at its finest…The Dave Holland Quintet is carrying the banner of creative music in the jazz tradition in the 21st century.” (Thom Jurek, All Music Guide to Jazz)

If acoustic bass players one day find themselves in the limelight of jazz, they will have to thank artists such as Oscar Pettiford, Charles Mingus, Ray Brown, and Dave Holland. Pettiford has been gone too long for most of us to remember his contributions; many contemporary jazz listeners have only heard Mingus on record although his influence hangs on the notes of every living post bop bassist. Ray Brown’s artistry is a more recent memory and certainly his legacy thrives on many levels today. And that leaves quite a mantle of responsibility on the shoulders of Dave Holland and his big box contemporaries, including Charlie Haden, Ron Carter and Buster Williams. Winner of the 2005 Down Beat Critics’ Poll as the year’s top Jazz Artist, Acoustic Bassist, and Big Band while repeating the Acoustic Bass honor in 2006, Holland and his star-studded quintet return to the Jazz Showcase in Chicago (October 17-22) and to the Dakota in Minneapolis, October 23-24.

A native of Wolverhampton, England, Dave Holland is a largely self-taught musician. He picked up the ukelele at age 4, then guitar at 10 and moved on to the bass guitar and local bands at 13. Two years after quitting school to become a professional musician, a 17-year –old Holland read about Ray Brown in Down Beat and picked up recordings by Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Within a week he traded in his bass guitar for the upright double bass, and was soon sitting in at local jazz clubs. Studying in London with a full scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Holland became an active bassist in the London jazz community, and by 1966 he was playing with John Surman, John McLaughlin, Evan Parker, Kenny Wheeler, and other London-based musicians. Inspired byCharles Mingus, Scott LaFaro, Jimmy Garrison, Ron Carter, and GaryPeacock, but especially Ray Brown, Holland played at Ronnie Scott's and toured with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and Joe Henderson. A gig with Bill Evans in 1968 attracted the attention of Miles Davis. Soon Holland was in New York touring and recording with Davis, including participating in the In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew sessions.

In 1997, Holland formed a new quintet with Steve Wilson (alto sax), Robin Eubanks (trombone), Steve Nelson (vibes) and Billy Kilson (drums), the group that evolved into his award-winning band, now with Chris Potter on tenor in place of Wilson (and Antonio Hart sometimes filling Potter’schair) and Nate Smith replacing Kilson on drums. Today Holland toursand records not only with this magical quintet, but with his 13-piece big band, which includes at its core the same quintet. And he still finds time to tour and record with colleagues, with John Scofield,Joe Lovano and Al Foster in 2002 as Scolohofo, with Geri Allen, andin a quartet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Brian Blade, and recently in duo with guitar wizard Jim Hall.

Holland’s quintet has received accolades for one recording after another, Points of View, Prime Directive, Not for Nothin,’ the 2-disc Extended Play, and their latest release, Critical Mass (Sunnyside, 2006). Of the latter, Lloyd Sachs noted that it “boasts some of the band's catchiest tunes while showcasing its fondness for mussing up their clean foundations with free-spirited exchanges before restoring civility.” The recordings have variously received Grammy nominations, Best of Year awards from groups including Down Beat and the Jazz Journalists Association, while the quintet has similarly been honored with Best Small Ensemble or Acoustic Group awards from Down Beat, Bell Atlantic, and the Jazz Journalists Association, among others.

The Dave Holland Big Band has received similar acclaim. In 2000 Holland received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee School of Music.“In my quintet,” says Holland, “we all recognize there’s a special quality to what we’re doing. We’re five people with complementary concepts who work cohesively…The rare opportunity to have a group with stable personnel over a relatively long period of time has given us a chance to explore these compositions beyond their beginnings and use them as a vehicle for our intuition and imagination.” Notes Potter, “Dave approaches the band as something you wind up and let go…He’s very curious to see how far we can take an idea and run with it.”

Running with Holland’s intuition and imagination are four musicians who deserve star status in their own right:

Chris Potter (sax): A prodigy who won the IAJE Young Talent Award at 12, Chris Potter was the youngest-ever winner of the Danish Jazzpar Prize at 29. Having established his reputation through his work with the Dave Douglas Quintet as well as his collaboration with Dave Holland, his work with his own quartet and other projects speaks volumes about his virtuosity on a variety of reeds and his individuality as a composer. With some echoes of Sonny Rollins and self-identified influences of Coltrane, Parker, Shorter, and Ornette Coleman, Potter’s style is his own, creative yet accessible, richly complex yet artfully emotional, highly original yet conceptually linked to 20th century roots. Named the 2006 “Rising Tenor Saxophonist” by the Down Beat Critics Poll (and runner-up Rising Star on soprano), Potter is currently touring with is Underground Quartet.

Steve Nelson (vibraphone): Pittsburgh native Steve Nelson graduated from Rutgers University with Masters and Bachelors degrees in music.He has performed and/or recorded with Kenny Barron, Bobby Watson, Mulgrew Miller, David Fathead Newman, Johnny Griffin and Jackie McLean, and has three recordings himself as a leader. Recently he has toured with Buster Williams in addition to his work with Dave Holland’s Quintet and Big Band. Of a recent appearance at the Dakota with Buster Williams, this reviewer noted that Nelson was “a true magician, in his hands mallets transform into feathery streaks of light.” And of his role in Dave Holland’s ensembles, Martin Longley (Jazzreview) offered that “Steve Nelson plays an important role throughout, his tingly-spine sparks acting as a piano alternative, establishing a unique form of punctuation for the whole band…”

Nate Smith (drums): The most recent addition to the Dave Holland Quintet, Nate Smith is also half of the synth rock duo, Shy Child with Pete Cafarella, described by Andrew Womack “as bold, gorgeous music that transports the listener through stark landscapes, all the while being so comforting with its overwhelmingly natural, seemingly unprocessed sound.” Smith first met Holland while attending Virginia Commonwealth University, and again while involved with Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program. After the two worked together a few times, Smith was Holland’s first choice to replace Billy Kilson. Lately Smith has also played with Chris Potter’s Quartet.

The piano-less quintet is a somewhat unusual instrumentation in modern jazz. Says Holland (Portfolio Weekly), “I wanted a two-horn front line for the band because compositionally that leads to more possibilities and gives the ensemble a particular sound, especially when we’re doing a kind of ensemble improvisation where everybody’s improvising at the same time, I guess in the style of the New Orleans bands in a way… And the possibilities of combining the trombone with saxophones, there’s a lot of variety of sound you can get because of the range and the timbre of the instruments. And the vibraphone and marimba has the percussion family connection with the drums as well as providing harmony and chords. It creates an opportunity for lots of different textures and orchestrations in the music.”

As the leader not only of his quintet but also of a highly acclaimed big band, and serving both as composer, arranger and producer while fitting in teaching along the way, Holland is one of the busiest musicians today. He is also one of the most humble, much like the big instrument whose sound he has perfected and interpreted. Noted Dan Ouellette in Down Beat, “His demeanor is similar to his stage presence. Holland quietly lead his bands…with a steady bass pulse in sets of swinging originals that display a flawless balance of form and freedom….relaxed, unhurried, assured.”

The Dave Holland Quintet performs at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, October 17-22 ( www.jazzshowcase.com); and at the Dakota in Minneapolis, October 23-24 (www.dakotacooks.com). The band heads east to the Regatta Bar in Boston, October 26-28 and then to Birdland in Manhattan, November 1-4