Harold Carr

music featuring harold

Story About Love by Marilyn Lerner (w/ Marilyn)
It's Up To You by h. carr (w/ Marilyn Lerner and Flavia Cervino-Wood)
more music ...

home :: music :: 2010-02-27-dave-holland-quintet.html

Thu, 04 Mar 2010

Dave Holland Quintet in Portland, Oregon

I heard the Dave Holland Quintet at the Portland Jazz Festival last Saturday. The day of the concert Dave did a live radio interview in the lobby of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts (same venue as the concert) with Steve Cantor of KMHO

Dave mentioned his early influences: Ray Brown and Leroy Vinegar (who spent his last years living in Portland). Speaking of Lifecycle, his solo cello recording, he said that when he flew in to make the recording he secretly hoped his cello got lost on the airline---not permanently, just enough not to have to do the record (he was so nervous about it).

After his first gig with Miles the other band members told him at least he didn't faint like a guy did that they picked up in Seattle. He said Miles gave him lots of space to do whatever he wanted. So much space that, in his youthful enthusiasm, he was all over his bass the whole time. Finally, after about a year, miles, after a gig, just walked up to him and said, "Dave, you know you are a bass player." So, in another burst of youthful enthusiasm, he reverted to only playing functional bass. He says that he hopes that by now he has learned how to be supportive and interactive---to have a grounded dialogue with the other musicians.

His first album, Conference of the Birds was recorded in 6 hours door-to-door. The record is all one take except for two tunes where they did two takes.

He now travels with a David Gage Czech-ease bass because airlines won't take over 75lbs, no matter how much you pay them. He says TSA is mostly OK, and will let him work with them while they search the large case.

I went to the concert later that evening with my daughter Jasmine and her husband Bruce. Pharoah Sanders was being interviewed in the lobby when we arrived. The interviewer was definitely having a hard time. Pharoah's responses were:

"I can't talk about it. I can only play about it."
"We just started to play."
"I just like playing music."

Inside, the Dave Holland Quintet consists of:

Dave Holland, bass
Steve Nelson, vibes
Alex "Sascha" Sipiagin, trumpet (subing for trombonist Robin Eubanks)
Chris Potter, tenor sax
Nate Smith, drums

The tunes they played were:

Step To It
Last Minute Man
Looking Up
Cosmosis
Make Believe
Free For All
Easy Did It

Afterwards Jasmine, Bruce and I went to the Tea Zone (Jasmine said that was great - a gig at a tea house instead of booze!) and heard a long time friend of mine, David Friesen.

David Friesen, bass
John Gross, tenor sax
Greg Goebel, piano

We arrived in the middle of the first set. We all noticed that David, although he was playing beautifully, looked drawn. When we talked with him at the break we found out why: his son, Scotty died a week ago. Very sad. All I could do was give him a hug. We stayed for all the 2nd (and last) set. He mostly played his slow compositions.

Jasmine and Bruce drove home and I went to the midnight jam session hosted by Darrell Grant. I didn't have my bass with me so did not sit in (plus it was packed with players so not sure if I could have even made it to the front). The tunes that were played while I was there were: