Not for Nothin (ECM)

Dave Holland Quintet

Released August 21, 2001

Grammy Nominee Best Jazz Instrumental Album 2002

DownBeat Album of the Year Critics Poll

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m3jr32OIu5DSUQpFWCpI4mVJudToWfspQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/06PCUADbEU6XAm9bpZY7zE?si=zLI9tjSpS-Ki_PiEGFOZig

About:

A musician to be reckoned with for more than three decades, and one of the most widely respected bass players and improvisers in jazz, Dave Holland has attained a new plateau of public popularity and critical acclaim with his current quintet. Both of the quintet’s previous albums, for instance, “Points of View” and “Prime Directive”, were Grammy-nominated; the band was voted #1 Acoustic Jazz Group of the Year in the Down Beat Critics’ Poll, Best Combo of the Year in the Bell Atlantic jazz Awards; the Jazz Journalists Association gave its Live Performance of the Year Award and Best Small Ensemble Award to the Holland Quintet, voted “Prime Directive” Album of the Year and also gave Holland prizes as Bass Player of the Year (twice) and Musician of the Year. Holland has also been #1 Bass Player in the Down Beat Critics Poll for three consecutive years and in 2000 received an Honorary Doctorate from the Berklee School of Music. In the midst of this ‘awards-bonanza’, quintet saxophonist Chris Potter became, at 29, the youngest musician ever to win the Danish Jazzpar prize, Europe’s highest honour for a jazz player. 
The group has made its mark by insisting on being “a group” in an age of all-star projects, and by the time-honoured route of going on the road and staying there. Itineraries have taken the unit all over North and South America, Europe and Asia, including a tour of China. Despite the individual members’ crowded schedules, each of them makes the quintet a priority. This year, in fact, they’ve been clocking in thrice with Holland, also appearing as members of his newly-formed octet and big band. 
“Much of how this music works is process,” Dave Holland said recently. “The circumstances you create. It’s about minimising what you impose on the situation but still having enough so that the key elements give it focus. Then, with all the wonderful creative talents of everybody else, you get this wonderful collective communion. That’s what I love about the music. The creation of something bigger than yourself. The groups I’ve always admired were like Ellington’s or Miles’s bands – groups of strong individuals who were focused around a musical idea. I’ve always looked for strong players who would bring something to the table. What’s happened in terms of the evolution of my group is that it’s become clear what the character of the group is and what its unique aspects are. Now we can take advantage of that in the writing and presentation of the music. We’ve discovered many things about the band and many things about each other – not only about the individuals but the relationship between the individuals that can be explored in the compositions. How Billy plays with Steve, how Robin plays with Chris, and what it sounds like when Robin and I play together – different aspects of the group that can be explored. The band is still growing and expanding its ideas and interpretations and the music we’re writing is taking advantage of that.”

Track Listing:

1. Global Citizen (Robin Eubanks) 11:13

2. For All You Are (Dave Holland) 8:19

3. Lost and Found (Chris Potter) 9:28

4. Shifting Sands (Dave Holland) 5:20

5. Billows of Rhythm (Billy Kilson) 6:46

6. What Goes Around (Dave Holland) 13:05

7. Go Fly a Kite (Steve Allen / Steve Nelson) 6:13

8. Not for Nothin’ (Dave Holland) 5:54

9. Cosmosis (Dave Holland) 6:11

Personnel:

Dave Holland: double-bass

Chris Potter: soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone

Robin Eubanks: trombone, cowbell

Steve Nelson: vibraphone, marimba

Billy Kilson: drums

Recorded September 21 – 23, 2000, at Avatar Studios, New York 

Produced by Dave Holland

Review:

The follow-up to last year’s Prime Directive is another must-hear. Once again, Dave Holland turns to each of his bandmates for writing contributions, considerably expanding the rhythmic and harmonic palette of the quintet. Chris Potter’s irrepressible “Lost and Found” may just be one of the best jazz tracks of our day. Robin Eubanks’s “Global Citizen,” the opener, with its riveting grooves, killer unaccompanied bass break, and unexpected tempo shifts, is another candidate for top honors. Billy Kilson’s off-kilter “Billows of Rhythm” and Steve Nelson’s haunting “Go Fly a Kite” are at opposite ends of the band’s compositional spectrum — the former embodying tight, polyrhythmic execution, the latter a bittersweet lyricism. And Holland’s five charts are characteristically wily and well-crafted, from the slow waltz “For All You Are” to the closing up-tempo burner “Cosmosis.” Things really come to a boil during his 13-minute-long “What Goes Around”; Potter tears it up on alto, Eubanks gets to growling through his mouthpiece, and Kilson finally solos over the alternating 6/4-5/4 bass line. This incarnation of the Dave Holland Quintet is a thing of utmost rarity: a cutting-edge ensemble that is brainy and complex yet downright entertaining. May its book and discography continue to grow.

David Adler (AllAboutJazz)