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Lost Tracks - Good CD's we overlooked last year
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Washington Post, Lost Tracks - Good CD's we overlooked last year >>
CRITlCAL MASS: Dave Holland Quintet
Thinking big becomes jazz bassist Dave Holland even when he isn't leading his acclaimed big band. "Critical Mass," the latest quintet album fronted by the former Miles Davis sideman, is a typically ambitious session, boasting a series of complex, challenging arrangements, some high-wire interplay and wide-open spaces for improvisation. Everything from New Orleans street beats to Middle Eastern tonalities inspire the shifting moods, meters and textures.
Holland shares the writing duties with his band mates, so there are plenty of fresh perspectives and intriguing thematic tacks. What sets this session apart from the band's previous albums more than anything else is drummer and new recruit Nate Smith. He excels when it comes to making funk beats swing, as "Lucky Seven" and other pieces vividly illustrate, and his muscular attack frequently spurs saxophonist Chris Potter and trombonist Robin Eubanks, alone or together.
Eubanks sometimes plays shadowy foil to Potter's commanding tenor and soprano, but just as often the horns fluidly circle each other or create elegant contrapuntal weaves. Steve Nelson, on vibes and marimba, deftly fills in for a pianist when necessary, sketching out the harmonies and contributing dashing chromaticism. His mallet work conjures its own spells, though, particularly during the opening bars of "Amator Silenti," the album's now haunting, now impassioned coda.
Holland penned four of the eight compositions here, and improvises with customary finesse and cunning. Yet he sounds perfectly content and thoroughly invigorated even when tending to the bottom line in this energized and expansive setting.
-Mike Joyce
DOWNLOAD THESE: "Easy Did It"; "Lucky Seven"
01/21/07
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