Prime Directive - Dave Holland Quintet

Jan

2

Prime Directive - Dave Holland Quintet

≡ Category: 2000s, Post Bop, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

I have the suspicion that when bassist/composer Dave Holland was putting together his quintet, he was trying to achieve a format that would be possible to listen to passively while still being intellectually rigorous and allowing for exploration of new compositional and arranging concepts. In my opinion, he only half succeeds.

Holland’s method is to limit the tonal palette of his quintet to conventionally pretty sounds: vibraphone, trombone, and saxophone (without any out of range squealing or honks). The other thing he does is to limit the use of altered scales and the blues in general, and include plenty of major sixths, major 9nths, and suspended fourths in his compositions and arrangements.

The idea is that by limiting dissonance and harsh timbres, the audience would let him get away with presenting challenging ideas. I think he overestimates the audience.

The hooks of the compositions, rhythmically and melodically speaking, are not strong, so listeners have very few aural landmarks to orient themselves. If you aren’t really listening to the music, the result is a kind of vague discomfort. Your ear isn’t really offended, but something feels not quite right. Unconsciously, your brain feels like someone slipped a whoopie cushion under your Temporal Lobe (the part of your brain associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli).

Paradoxically, if you really listen to Prime Directive, your problems only increase because of the lack of aural landmarks. You struggle to get a handle on the compositions. The tunes on Prime Direction don’t sound like noise. There is a clear compositional intelligence behind them, but the strategies are unfamiliar. One of the features of these tunes is contrapuntal lines, lots of them, sometimes approaching a fugue-like complexity. Holland will have Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Robin Eubanks on trombone, and occasionally saxophonist Chris Potter play individual melodic lines that interlock like a Rubik’s cube. It’s pretty neat, but it’s also exhausting.

Thanks God the solos themselves are straightforward post-bop, although even that doesn’t help much because the compositional structures are so unfamiliar.

Another thing Holland has fun with is creating bizarre rhythmic grooves from interlocking parts, as on Juggler’s Parade, which sounds exactly like the title. Steve Nelson pounds out a cyclic part through which Holland weaves on bass, while Billy Kilson anchors the groove on drums. The solo is taken by Robin Eubanks on trombone.

One thing I appreciate: whenever Billy Kilson takes a drum solo, Holland provides him with a form to solo over. It’s nice to have a context in which to enjoy a drum solo instead of the free form bashing away often indulged in by drummers.

In fact, maybe the best approach, if you don’t have the time or the inclination to sit down and thoroughly analyze the compositions, is to appreciate the off-kilter grooves, the rhythmic shapes of the solos, and the variations in timbres achieved by different combinations of instruments and let it go at that.

My guess is that, for the average listener, this is going to be an exercise in frustration. However, I have to give props to Dave Holland for coming up with an truly original approach to post bop. What’s more, the music is extremely well thought out and executed. I’m basically going to penalize Prime Direction two whole stars for being so darned cryptic. If you don’t agree, sue me. (Ahem, that’s a joke — you can never be too careful in this litigious society.)