Dave's new record is a quartet with Eric Harland drumming, Craig Taborn on keys and Kevin Eubanks playing electric guitar. It presents a pretty sharp break from the sound of the beloved DH5, not only in personnel but because Dave only wrote two of the nine songs.
The album opens with Kevin Eubanks' "The Watcher" and it's rockin' pretty heavy. It's a riff-driven mixed-meter tune based on a shred-guitar sound -- it reminds me of the band Tool until Craig Taborn starts soloing on Rhodes. I actually went back to check whether Dave was playing bass guitar: Nope, this is "metal upright." Eubanks' "Color of Iris" has quiet echoes of Mahavishnu. It's a nice tune -- I like it -- but the accompaniment is so riff- and root-bound that it could be essentially any good player on bass. (The solo, of course, sounds like Dave Holland.)
But Kevin Eubanks' compositions are the extreme cases here. The bulks of the record shows a master enjoying some new mixtures of company and checking out some 'new' timbres. I love hearing Craig Taborn play acoustic piano and his writing is a great fit for Dave Holland's aesthetic -- on "Spirals" the first free bit sounds like Circle with guitar instead of horn. Eric Harland's "Breathe" is a gorgeous ballad and Taborn does the piece justice on acoustic piano.
On the one hand, if someone asked me for an introduction to Dave Holland's work as a leader I probably would not point to this record. On the other hand, I will listen to this again, and learn from it, and enjoy it when when I do.
The album opens with Kevin Eubanks' "The Watcher" and it's rockin' pretty heavy. It's a riff-driven mixed-meter tune based on a shred-guitar sound -- it reminds me of the band Tool until Craig Taborn starts soloing on Rhodes. I actually went back to check whether Dave was playing bass guitar: Nope, this is "metal upright." Eubanks' "Color of Iris" has quiet echoes of Mahavishnu. It's a nice tune -- I like it -- but the accompaniment is so riff- and root-bound that it could be essentially any good player on bass. (The solo, of course, sounds like Dave Holland.)
But Kevin Eubanks' compositions are the extreme cases here. The bulks of the record shows a master enjoying some new mixtures of company and checking out some 'new' timbres. I love hearing Craig Taborn play acoustic piano and his writing is a great fit for Dave Holland's aesthetic -- on "Spirals" the first free bit sounds like Circle with guitar instead of horn. Eric Harland's "Breathe" is a gorgeous ballad and Taborn does the piece justice on acoustic piano.
On the one hand, if someone asked me for an introduction to Dave Holland's work as a leader I probably would not point to this record. On the other hand, I will listen to this again, and learn from it, and enjoy it when when I do.
