[Classic Jazz Revisited] … features “Like Minds” by Burton, Corea, Metheny, Haynes & Holland

Tags

Chick Corea, DAve Holland, Gary Burton, Jazz, Pat Metheny, Roy Haynes

Flux Classic Jazz Revisited

For those of you whose been with me thus far, you know my original intent was to showcase great jazz recordings from a period that truly impacted music lovers and to ultimately feature some of these innovative figures in jazz from the late fifties through early seventies each week. With that said, “Like Minds” as I hear it is an inviting portrait of gorgeous music articulated by this amazing ensemble of musicians recorded in the late nineties reminded me at this juncture as a music enthusiast I can hardly afford to exclude.

After all, this adored music we cherish greatness is processed through the ear, heart and mind of the beholder regardless the decade it derive from. —Rob Young // The Urban Flux

Burton, Corea, Metheny, Haynes & Holland - Like Minds

Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Roy Haynes & Dave Holland -//- Like Minds – [Concord Records, 1998]

Though Gary Burton, arguably the world’s preeminent vibes jazz player, is the name at the top of the marquis on this new release from the venerable Concord Jazz label, much of the initial excitement here is the result of the first meeting on record of guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Chick Corea. Considering the lofty status of both players, it’s hard to believe they haven’t paired before. The rhythm section is rounded out by the venerable team of Roy Haynes and Dave Holland on drums and bass. All five of the players are kindred spirits, having played together frequently through the years, save for the Metheny-Corea combination. The mind meld between Burton and Corea is as tight as can be imagined, with these two players having a long history together.

On “Like Minds” it is Corea and Metheny’s compositional talents that take center stage. Each offer well known chestnuts from their repertoire – in Corea’s case, it is the lilting jazz waltz, “Windows” (perhaps my favorite track), while Metheny’s classic “Question and Answer” is given a fresh treatment. Burton’s “Country Roads” is offered as well and all three composers contribute new pieces for the project. —Solid/Amazon.com

..:: Source: Amazon.com ::..

New Music [Jazz] for 3/23/2010

Tags

African American, Bass, DAve Holland, Jazz

Greeting’s fellow music aficionados, welcome to week three of the March edition of New Releases. As always, I have a diverse array of artists including jazz/blues vocalist Mose Allison, our feature album of the week “Pathways” by Dave Holland Octet, trumpeter Tom Harrell, the finale recording by keyboard legend Joe Zawinul, also the fabulous piano duoEric Reed and Cyrus Chestnut, saxophonist Candy Dulfer and more.

Featured Album of the Week

Dave Holland Octet | Pathways – [ Dare2 Records, 2010]

Dave Holland Octet - Pathways

Pathways marks the recording debut of the Dave Holland Octet and the fourth album to be released on Holland s own Dare2 label. The players should be familiar to Holland fans: Chris Potter (tenor, soprano), Robin Eubanks (trombone), Steve Nelson (vibes, marimba), and Nate Smith (drums). Added to the front-line are other Holland collaborators Antonio Hart (alto), Alex Sipiagin (trumpet), and Gary Smulyan (baritone). Holland returned to New York s Birdland to record Pathways capturing this incredible group of improvisers in full flight.

Says Holland, – I had always loved the sound of the Duke Ellington small groups, often with a five horn front-line plus the rhythm section. The combination of two brass and three saxes gives access to a wide range of textures and colors and allows a composer to evoke the sound of a big band or create the more intimate sound of a small group. I also wanted a project that would include at its core my regular working quintet and build the music around what we had already developed as a small group.

Dave Holland Quartet | Conference of The Birds

Tags

Acoustic Bass, DAve Holland, Jazz

Dave Holland Quartet | Conference of The Birds – [ECM, 1973]

Dave Holland Quartet - Conference of The Birds

I originally bought the LP of this in early 1974, having heard Holland, Altschul, and Braxton in Chick Corea’s band Circle, and of course knowing Holland’s work on some highly conspicuous Miles Davis recordings (In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew…). I bought CotB under the impression that I knew what I was getting myself into. I’d been wrestling with atonality for awhile — late Coltrane, Schoenberg, whatever I could find that seemed reasonably “important.” I was not getting it. I had the youthful faith that there was something worthwhile happening inside all that cacophony, but I needed a Rosetta Stone to make sense of it. “Conference of the Birds” was my Rosetta Stone. From the opening bars of “Four Winds” I was completely captivated. It swings hard, the improvisations are always coherent — no matter how frenzied and dissonant they sound, and Holland’s compositions are outstanding. The title song is a beautiful folk ballad that makes a perfect breather amid the fiery uptempo rants and cryptic, avant garde soundscapes. This record was the best education my ears ever had. Even though I now have it on CD, I still have my battered vinyl copy of CotB, and hold onto it for purely sentimental reasons.

Mingus Big Band, Dave Holland & Pharoah Sanders …

Tags

African American, Bass, DAve Holland, Jazz, Mingus Big Band, Pharoah Sanders, Saxophone

To Headline 2010 Portland Jazz Festival February 22-28

Festival to also Present “Is Jazz Dead (Or Has It Moved to a New Address)?-New Music from Norway” Showcasing Three North American Premiere Performances

The 2010 Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank will be held February 22-28 with jazz outreach programming in area schools and community centers on Monday through Friday, February 22-26, leading up to a series of headline concerts Thursday through Sunday, February 25-28 throughout downtown and inner Eastside Portland venues.

Dave Holland | Pass It On

Tags

Bass, DAve Holland, Jazz

Dave Holland

Dave Holland | Pass It On [Nu-Jazz]

Pass It On features newly-realized arrangements of some potent Holland compositions from past recordings, including “Lazy Snake” and “Equality” (from 1995’s Dream of the Elders), the uptempo burner “Double Vision” (from 1984’s Seeds of Time), the dynamic, mood-shifting suite “Rivers Run” (written for Dave’s former duets partner from the mid-’70s, saxophonist Sam Rivers, and originally appearing on 1988’s Triplicate), “Processional” (from 1989’s Extensions) and “Modern Times” (from the 1995 Gateway recording, Homecoming). “Some of the compositions that I’ve written in the past evolve in my mind a little bit over time,” says Holland, who is perhaps the most prolific bassist-composer since Charles Mingus. “When we first recorded some of these pieces, they were done in more stripped-down versions with different instrumentation, and I was starting to hear them as being possible for a larger ensemble. – Amazon.com