What Goes Around (ECM)
Dave Holland Big Band
Released September 10, 2002
Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album 2003
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About:
What goes around for Dave Holland are the rewards of one of the most prolific and successful careers in the contemporary jazz world. Three decades as an ECM recording artist, which the bassist/composer surveys in his soon-to-be-released volume in the label’s acclaimed :rarum series; 20 years as an influential bandleader; and a current quintet (featuring trombonist Robin Eubanks, saxophonist Chris Potter, vibist Steve Nelson and drummer Billy Kilson) for which Grammy nominations and jazz poll victories both as individuals and a unit have become de rigueur have collectively made Holland one of the music’s definitive figures.
“A lot of things I’ve wished for have come true,” Holland admitted during his run of five concerts with five different ensembles at the 2000 Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. “But it’s time for a new challenge. And when I came off the stage last night, I told my wife Clare that I had the same feeling that I had when my first quintet played its first gig in 1983. Something has been put in motion, and suddenly I see what the next ten years are going to be about.”
That something was the 13-piece Dave Holland Big Band, which had made its debut on the previous evening. With his quintet as the foundation and eight like-minded musicians adding a range of colors and personal perspectives, the ensemble had set the Montreal audience on its collective ear in a performance that those in attendance still recall as one of the signal experiences of the new millennium. The sounds heard that night have evolved as the band continued to work, and are now documented on Holland’s new CD, What Goes Around.
The Dave Holland Big Band was a dream that gestated for years. “My initial foray was a commission from the Public Theatre in ’87, where I put together a 13-piece band,” Holland recalls. “It was pretty much the same except with a piano, because I hadn’t met up with Steve Nelson at that point. But the music wasn’t really ready, so I put it aside. When the Montreal Festival invited me to create one of its Invitation Series two years ago, it was a perfect opportunity to revisit the project.”
In the intervening years, Holland not only met Nelson, whose singular approach to the vibes provides a more open harmonic foundation for the bassist’s music, but also assembled a working quintet that provided the template for a more interactive approach to the large ensemble. “What’s very important for me is having the quintet as the nucleus,” Holland explained. “The five of us have established our sound over the past five years, which was the starting point that everybody else in the band came to. Our approach to the music brought the band together quickly, and created the soul and spirit in the music. Everybody could hear it and build from there. The Montreal debut came together after only two or three rehearsals, which really knocked me out.”
For Holland, the big band provided an opportunity to blend the lessons he had learned from some of his musical heroes with his own evolving ethic. “One of my role models was the Ellington band, and the way Ellington and Strayhorn wrote for their particular musicians. I wanted the music to be settings for improvisers, not just an excuse for my own writing, and this led me to combine improvisation and written parts. Flexibility has been built into the music, so we can change it from night to night. The idea, as in the music of Ellington-Strayhorn and Charles Mingus, is that it can be difficult to tell where writing and improvising diverge. I don’t mean to compare myself with Ellington and Mingus; but their approach to dealing with strong personalities, so that each personality comes through, was the idea. I did not want to overwrite or underwrite, so that it made sense to use the larger group without making size an end in itself. And I thought that 13 musicians would be less dense than the standard big band, which allowed me to keep the intimacy of the quintet.”
One of Holland’s greatest achievements in creating his big band has been the integration of so many new personalities while retaining the quintet approach. “I didn’t want a band with just one or two soloists,” he explains, “and I wanted a group of individuals. I chose musicians for the personality they bring to the improvisational parts, as well as for their ensemble skills. My concept for the big band is really the celebration of the collective by a group of true individuals. That collaboration, and finding the settings where such distinct musical personalities could all be heard at their best, made it more exciting for me.
“I had already written for an octet, which was another stage in the development of the big band, and Gary Smulyan and Antonio Hart were part of that effort. So I knew that there was a body of people who were becoming familiar with the quintet approach.” In addition to Smulyan and Hart, Holland added several imposing young soloists – trumpeters Duane Eubanks and Alex Sipiagin, trombonists Andre Hayward and Josh Roseman and alto saxophonist Mark Gross – as well as the lead trumpet of Earl Gardner, and the instant affinity of each player for the bassist’s music has created an uncommonly organic sounding new ensemble.
Holland’s arrangements expand the dynamic and coloristic range of his music within its established context. “With a smaller group, you can just work with the essential materials and count on the improvisers to complete your ideas,” he says. “But you don’t want 13 people just sitting there waiting to play the theme. Orchestrating this music was time consuming and a process of discovery. I really enjoyed the opportunity to think differently about the music, and to call upon more options. Employing mixed voicings, and not just the standard brass and reed sections, allowed me to explore different colour combinations. And I told Billy [Kilson] not to approach this like the traditional big band thing where the drummer sets up all of the ensemble phrases, but rather to treat it like the quintet. And he did a wonderful job, picking just the right things to accentuate and shape the arrangements.”
For repertoire, Holland looked to the body of work that has made him one of jazz’s most intriguing and personal composers. “I wanted material I had been developing over the years, because I already had an idea where I could go with each piece,” he emphasizes. “That gave me kind of a jump-start, and made the task of orchestration less daunting. I also thought it would be interesting for listeners to hear how music they already knew had been developed with a big-band feeling.” Indeed, one of the treats in listening to What Goes Around is comparing the big band’s interpretations with the versions of “Shadow Dance” and “First Snow” on Jumpin’ In, the 1983 debut of the first Dave Holland Quintet (with Kenny Wheeler, Julian Priester, Steve Coleman and Steve Ellington); “The Razor’s Edge” and “Blues for C.M.,” which a later edition of that band (with Wheeler, Coleman, Robin Eubanks and Marvin “Smitty” Smith) recorded in 1987 on The Razor’s Edge; “Triple Dance,” recorded by Holland, Coleman and Jack DeJohnette in 1988 on Triplicate; and the title track, which the current quintet cut in 2000 for its most recent disc, Not for Nothin’. The program is completed by a new composition, “Upswing,” that delivers the same combination of challenge and groove that listeners have come to recognize as Holland’s signature.
Of his first big band experience, Holland says, “I feel like I just scratched the surface. It’s a longtime adventure that’s just beginning.” Yet the first phase of this adventure is monumental, and one feels sure that What Goes Around will take its place alongside other albums in the Holland discography – Conference of the Birds, Jumpin’ In and Points of View – that set standards of excellence and marked starting points for further achievements.
Bob Blumenthal
Track Listing:
1. Triple Dance (Dave Holland) 9:50
2. Blues for C.M. (Dave Holland) 9:02
3. The Razor’s Edge (Dave Holland) 6:15
4. What Goes Around (Dave Holland) 17:18
5. Upswing (Dave Holland) 6:51
6. First Snow (Dave Holland) 11:48
7. Shadow Dance (Dave Holland) 14:43
Personnel:
Dave Holland: double-bass
Antonio Hart: alto saxophone, flute
Mark Gross: alto saxophone
Chris Potter: tenor saxophone
Gary Smulyan: baritone saxophone
Robin Eubanks: trombone
Andre Hayward: trombone
Josh Roseman: trombone
Earl Gardner: trumpet, flugelhorn
Alex Sipiagin: trumpet, flugelhorn
Duane Eubanks: trumpet, flugelhorn
Steve Nelson: vibraphone
Billy Kilson: drums
Recorded January, 2001, at Avatar Studios, NYC
Produced by Dave Holland and Manfred Eicher
Engineer: James Farber
Assistant Engineer: Aya Takemura
Cover Image: Max Franosch
Review:
I’ve never been overly impressed by popularity contests, and as British-bred bassist Dave Holland swept the field in this year’s Down Beat magazine critics’ poll, I was thoroughly prepared not to like What Goes Around by Holland’s thirteen-piece big band.
Surprise! The album is far better than expected; in fact, I’d go so far as to concede that it is thoroughly absorbing, enlivened every step of the way by notably innovative charts and earnestly inspired blowing from Holland’s company of enterprising soloists. Never thought I’d be writing that, but there it is. One simply can’t argue with his ears or his common sense. Given Holland’s adventurous resume, what I wasn’t expecting to hear was music so inflexibly anchored in the mainstream jazz tradition with its indispensable trappings—melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint—unimpaired, and, best of all, almost none of the narcissistic posturing that I usually associate (rightly or wrongly) with the avant-garde.
As I have only an advance copy of What Goes Around, and must have misplaced any written material that came with the album, there’s not much more to say except that every one of the tunes (I assume that all were written by Holland) bears the stamp of a master craftsman, and that there are a number of engaging solos by Holland (who introduces the final track, “Shadow Dance,” with a three-minute bass clinic) and his companions, with baritone Gary Smulyan, trombonist Robin Eubanks, vibraphonist Steve Nelson and tenor Chris Potter especially dashing. Well, I must have had more information about the album at one time, otherwise I’d not even know the names of the various tunes or the band’s personnel. I wish I could lay my hands on whatever it was but that doesn’t seem likely. Even so, I can say without equivocation that Holland has an excellent ensemble that is more closely akin to the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra (or its successor, the Vanguard JO) than, say, the Mingus or Carla Bley bands, and that What Goes Around, which quickly made a believer of this hidebound conservative, should please almost anyone who appreciates a world-class big band.
Jack Bowers (AllAboutJazz)
