Passing It On To A New Band

Dave Holland's latest, "Pass it On," features his latest band, a sextet that is both the same and different from all of his other bands in much the way that they are both the same and different from eachother. Let me clarify; this new band has the same tendency as all of Holland's classic bands (his latest long-running Nelson-Eubanks-Potter Quintet, or, say, the Steve Coleman-Marvin Smitty Smith groups of the 80s) to work with noir-ish chord progressions (most of the compositions here were recorded by earlier Holland bands) and incredibly intricate time signatures. It is different in that the personalities involved here are very different from those of earlier bands.

The only real newcomers to Holland's band are pianist Mulgrew Miller and drummer Eric Harland, as all of the others have appeared with some version of Holland's group in the past; trumpeter Alex Sipiagin and alto saxophonist Antonio Hart were featured on Holland's two big band albums, and Robin Eubanks has been a collaborator with Holland for almost two decades. The tunes are great, and the band's interplay is tasteful if a bit safe. In fact, that's the only problem with this album; it seems a little bit too safe for Holland. There are none of the five minute rhythm section-less dual solos of his Quintet that made Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks household names in the jazz world ten or so years ago, and while Eric Harland is a brilliant drummer and has shown himself to be one of the great young musicians elsewhere, his playing here isn't as dynamic as Billy Kilson's or Marvin Smitty Smith's.

Of course, those gripes are almost meaningless when you take into consideration that this band has only been together for a short time and will hopefully grow into their sound as a unit in the future; it took years for Holland's classic quintet to come together in the form it was in for a decade, and years more to evolve into the jazz combo of the 00's. The sextet format gives Holland a chance to explore more colors in his noirish, rhythmically propulsive vein, even though this band lacks the chaotic feel of some of his earlier bands, and lacks the crispness of his big band. The soloists all sound great, and the highlight of the record is Sipiagin's blazing display of both technique and emotion on this groups version of "Processional." Definitely worth a listen for Holland fans, although his sextet's next album will probably showcase a quantum leap in terms of band interplay.

Next time I'll have my monthly edition of "Tearing the New Downbeat Apart Limb by Limb," and you can expect hours of entertainment judging by the fact that opening section features an inquiry about "which jazz musician would make the best president," (Donny McCaslin doesn't think it should be who you think he thinks it should be) and two (TWO! WTF) five star reviews, one of which was actually written by a teacher of mine. So check back in a couple days.

Caramoor Day Two: Piano Wars '08!

Alright, so I've got about an hour to write about Caramoor Day 2 before I have to run back to Katonah, and so I think I have just enough time to devote two separate entries to the events. The next one is going to be about Wynton and his circus of New Orleans style madness, so that must mean that this one is devoted to the "Cuban Piano Summit" of Elio Villafranca and Chuchito Valdez and Mulgrew Miller's Wingspan.

As expected, the Cuban piano battle was the best event of the day, even though it wasn't quite what I had expected. Advertised as just that, a death match for the claim to title of God of Los Pianos Cubanos, the event was more like two guys playing separately. At least in the beginning. I was more than a little bit disappointed when Elio Villafranca came out and played "El Manicero" solo, thinking "hey, this isn't what I got free press tickets for, where's Chuchito? These guys should be killing eachother!" Of course, that was just the beginning, and Chuchito came out after Elio had finished his set of three tunes. Chuchito came out wearing a massive piece of bling; some kind of god chain the likes of which I haven't seen anywhere but in rap videos. He played his own set of solo tunes, the highlight of which was a gorgeous version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and then Elio came back out and the death match began.

It all started out pretty simply; they played a pretty Cuban head and then started trading some tasteful fours. Elio tried to keep it tasteful, you know: some nice bop licks, a relatively simple polyrhythm. But then Chuchito went nuts, jumped up and down and played some incredibly fast, complicated stuff. Elio couldn't keep it tasteful; he went for the balls and matched Chuchito's complex work and made it even more complicated. It was on. Chuchito played the lowest notes on his piano. Elio played the highest. Chuchito banged the keys. Elio banged back. After about ten minutes they finished the tune and walked off stage, at which point Caramoor jazz fest producer Jim Luce called on them for a rematch-encore which neither of them could resist. The rematch consisted of another Cuban tune that eventually devolved into a twelve bar be-bop style blues and a disturbing amount of quoting from both; they quoted everything from "Rhapsody in Blue" to "Straight No Chaser." Afterwards, when I ran into him, Villafranco said the whole thing was unrehearsed. "I kept on calling him asking him what we'd do," he said, "and he just said, 'ehhh we'll figure it out'." Was it a total pissing contest? No question. Was it awesome? Hell yeah.

As for Mulgrew Miller's Wingspan, my non-jazz inclined companion said that a lot of the show was "boring," but that Miller's solo piano version of "It Never Entered My Mind" was "pretty." I think I'm inclined to agree with her. But Steve Nelson killed it. Absolutely nailed the show. He may not do the four-mallet thing, but he's still quite possibly the most technically capable vibes player in jazz.