Dave Holland

Great bassist. Has a lot of great albums.

I only have 3 so far, Prime Directive, Not For Nothin', and Extended Play: Live At Birdland. I consider these to be near perfect albums. For a long time I have been meaning to check out Conference of the Birds, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I also want to get another of his 2000s albums like Critical Mass or Pathways.

Of course, this is Dave Holland we're talking about, and he's on some seminal Miles Davis albums like In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

Like Ron Carter, Holland is featured as bassist on many other albums, some of which I have such as "Like Minds" with Chick Corea, Roy Haynes, Gary Burton, and Pat Metheny. Speaking of Metheny, he and Dave have been on at least a couple of trio albums, one of which I have, and the two of them are on probably my favorite album with Dave Holland on it.... "Parallel Realities Live" with Dave Holland, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, and Jack DeJohnette. Great album, I recommend it if you haven't heard it.

I especially like Holland's early  works - from solo debut to A.R.C. and Circle with Corea. Saw him playing live in 2008 (

Dave Holland Quintet with  Robin Eubanks, Chris Potter, Steve Nelson & Nate Smith), extremely professional and sofisticated, probably a bit too "chamber" for my taste.

Ive heard good things about Dream of the Elders.

How are his most recent, 2000s, albums?

Kazuhiro wrote: The album of recent Dave Holland thinks that musicality is unified basically. He always keeps good standards as quintet, but I feel it when a performance of quintet is almost gathered by "Not for Nothin'".

So you're saying Not For Nothin' is the best one of the recent albums?

I have that one, and Prime Directive and Extended Play: Live at Birdland, which may be the best ones of his out of the other late 90s/ 2000s albums. Critical Mass looked interesting when it came out, but I never bought it. And the other one I mentioned in the OP seems to have good ratings here (of course, it's probably only 2 ratings ).

I listened to Not For Nothin' last night. I love it, but I think Prime Directive is a little better.

I need to get some early Dave Holland works. The only things I have from the 60s and 70s is anything he did with Miles Davis. I don't think I have anything with him on it from the 80s either.

Besides his own albums, most of the stuff I have by him is with other artists, "Like Minds" for example, from 1995, is a Gary Burton-led album, also featuring Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, and Roy Haynes. Or a couple of Pat Metheny Trio albums I have with Dave as bassist.

Edited by darkshade - 12 Jun 2012 at 9:38pm

Critical Mass is really good album from the noughties, particularly the track 'Secret Garden', which has a kind of smokey Eastern sound. I also like Steve Nelson's Marimba and Vibraphone playing throughout. I do recomend going back to his early classic 'Conference of the Birds' though.