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Another Land, Dave Holland

Dave Holland is a bassist, composer, bandleader whose passion for musical expression of all styles, and dedication to creating consistently innovative music ensembles have propelled a professional career of more than 50 years, and earned him top honors in his field including multiple Grammy awards.

Holland stands as a guiding light on acoustic and electric bass, having grown up in an age when musical genres—jazz, rock, funk, avant-garde, folk, electronic music, and others—blended freely together to create new musical pathways. He was a leading member of a generation that helped usher jazz bass playing from its swing and post-bop legacy to the vibrancy and multidiscipline excitement of the modern era, extending the instrument’s melodic, expressive capabilities. Holland’s virtuosic technique and rhythmic feel, informed by an open-eared respect of a formidable spread of styles and sounds, is widely revered and remains much in demand. To date, His playing can be heard on hundreds of recordings, with more than thirty as a leader under his own name.

As a leader and collaborator, Holland continues to tour the world and it comes as no surprise that he has and still serves the music in an educational role, having worked during the 1980s as artistic director of the Banff Centre’s jazz summer program (Canada), and as a faculty member for two years at the New England Conservatory of Music in the ‘90s, where he still serves as an artist in residence (as he does at the Royal Academy of Music.) He has also been elected a Fellow of the Guildhall School—his alma mater—and has received honorary doctorates from Birmingham Conservatoire (UK), Berklee College of Music, and the New England Conservatory.

Most recently, Holland was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (UK)—a rare honor as membership is limited to 300 living musicians—and he’s been named a 2017 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Over the years and through countless musical experiences, Holland has come to define his purpose as a musician—and he articulates it well: “I’m trying to create music that exists on multiple levels, such as simpler elements along with more complex elements. To me, a lot of great art, whether it’s visual, musical or written, has an ability to do those things—to offer some fundamental truths that echo in people, yet at the same time, introduce them to a new way of looking at those fundamentals that gives them a little different perspective…

Another Land, Dave Holland

Another Land is the new album from the all-star trio featuring Dave Holland, Kevin Eubanks and Obed Calvaire and a power-packed set of originals. This is a potent studio set of fluid themes developed by the band and forged in the furnace of live performance. During the live shows that preceded the recording of Another Land, Dave explains “we were doing a continuous set, once we started we very rarely stopped, we just kept going,”. The Guardian described the shows as a “blues-fuelled inferno summoning the spirit of Hendrix”

Throughout his career, Dave Holland has established a reputation for making his bands a proving ground for promising young instrumentalists, but his latest trio is a true all-star assemblage of jazz heavyweights, all established bandleaders and composers, each representing the world standard on their instrument. Released on limited edition double vinyl, CD and hi-res download, this is a power-packed set that reunites Dave with the guitar work of Kevin Eubanks, whose searing, soulful approach was last heard on Dare 2 as part of the Prism project. Eubanks was also key to the muscular quartet that recorded Holland’s seminal 1990 ECM release Extensions, and this new band is yet another example of Holland’s brilliance at building ensembles that are greater than the sum of their formidable parts.

The album will be available on CD, Limited Edition Coloured Double Vinyl and hi-res download – the first 200 LPs will also be numbered and include a signed postcard.

Dave Holland
Bass and Bass Guitar

Kevin Eubanks
Guitar

Obed Calvaire
Drums

Recorded by Chris Allen at Sear Sound, 10th-11th September 2020
Assistant Engineer – Steven Sacco
Mixed at Sear Sound, NYC 18th – 20th August 2020
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound 7th September 2020

Album Artwork by Oli Bentley & Will Hibbert, Split
Photography by Ulli Gruber

Copies of Dave Holland compositions are available at daveholland.com/lojac-sheet-music/

Dave Holland uses Michael Tobias Design Bass Guitars, Thomastik-Infeld Bass Strings, LaBella Bass Guitar Strings and Gallien-Krueger Speakers and Amplifiers.
Kevin Eubanks uses Gallien-Krueger Amplifiers, Ernie Ball Strings and Morley Pedals
Obed Calvaire uses Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, Meinl percussion and Yamaha drums

Episode #273

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