Dave Holland – Bass

Dave Holland has produced some great solo albums over the years; ‘Emerald Tears’, ‘Life Cycle’ (mostly cello) and ‘One’s All’. The performances are generally very difficult to transcribe and call for a lot of liberties to be taken in the recording. This tune is no exception.

‘Reminiscence’ is a Holland composition from the 1996 album ‘One’s All’ (is it really 30 years old?) and is one of the more structured pieces (Holland has done a lot os Free Jazz which is close to impossible to get down onto paper – I guess that is the nature of the beast in that sense) so there is some merit in trying to record it. The secret of generating a performance with a chart like this is to ignore the concept of time, pulse or groove and focus on tone, musicality and emotional expression. If you listen to the tune with the dots in front of you, you will get a sense of what it is I mean and how to turn the ink into music. It’s very rewarding and I love the sound of a solo double bass, pizzicato or arco.