No Isolation: A Conversation with Dave Holland (Part Two)

We continue our conversation (check out part one here) with NEA Jazz Master Dave Holland by digging into his solo works, bluegrass music, music from around the world, and more.

PG: Since musical relationships are very important to you, it would be interesting to know more about your solo bass work on both Emerald Tears (ECM, 1977) and Ones All (VeraBra, 1995). What do you enjoy most about solo performances? 

DH: Well, Emerald Tears was recorded during an interesting week. I was in Oslo, and we did three records in a week there. We did one of Kenny Wheeler’s records [Deer Wan (ECM, 1978)] with the Gateway trio of Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie, and myself. We spent a couple of days working on that record, then spent a couple of days recording a Gateway album [Gateway 2 (ECM, 1977)]. At the end of recording the Gateway album, everybody else went home, and I recorded my solo record, Emerald Tears. 

I got into performing solo through Anthony Braxton. Emerald Tears was recorded not that long – maybe four or five years – after Circle ended. During Circle’s concerts, Braxton would often do solo pieces. He also used to do solo saxophone concerts, which was not done a lot before that. I think Coleman Hawkins was one of the first people to record a solo saxophone piece in the jazz situation. And Anthony encouraged me to do solo performances as well. To that point, I’d never really done a completely solo piece on my own in that way. So, I started doing solo pieces with Circle. Over time, ideas would come together on what material I wanted to use. And that’s how that recording happened. 

Playing solo is a chance to really explore the instrument. You can change the music in a second if you want to. It’s not a situation where you’re playing with one or more musicians as a group experience. You have total control over what happens. Either you play or there’s silence. That context helps you learn a lot about your instrument. 

Anyway, it’s an opportunity to explore the instrument and to discover some ways of pacing the music. You have no help up there. It’s just you, and you’ve got to figure out how to create change and interest; different moments, different episodes in the music, and different contrasting sections. 

PG: You also have a solo cello album, Life Cycle (ECM, 1983). How did that recording come about?

DH: Well, I’d been playing cello for about ten years when I started working on that record. I began playing cello when I was with Circle, probably in 1970. Then I played it with Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton, along with the acoustic bass. Those experiences gave me a chance to work on the instrument. I’ve also always loved Bach’s Cello Suites, and they have informed me a lot about how to use the cello. I use standard cello tuning rather than returning it like a bass. A bass is tuned, traditionally, in fourths, and a cello is tuned in fifths, so there’s a different system for the two. Practicing the Cello Suites gave me a lot of opportunities to see the characteristics of the cello. Bach wrote such amazing lines for the cello, which encompass all the harmony and all the melody with only one instrument.

So, I was due to make that record after I left Sam Rivers’ band. That was the first project I worked on after leaving that band. I think it was in late ‘81 or early ‘82. But then I had a very serious medical condition that took me out of the running for about six months. While I was recuperating, I played the cello a lot. And as soon as I was back on the scene again, I went to Germany and recorded the album.  I called it Life Cycle because it was a relief to know that I’d survived this situation I had been in and given a chance to continue with this journey. 

PG: Life Cycle is a gorgeous recording. It is very emotionally moving. 

DH: Thank you so much. It was a very emotional experience creating it, as you can imagine. I think all that I went through came out in the music. I tried to pour all of my feelings into playing for that project. 

And it’s funny. Can I tell you a very honest thing? I went to Stuttgart, Germany, to record the album. I was at the airport, waiting for the cello to be delivered to the baggage area. Suddenly, I started having doubts as to whether I could pull off this solo cello record. I was standing in the baggage area sort of thinking, “Hmm, maybe I would like it if the cello didn’t turn up today, so I wouldn’t have to confront myself in the studio playing the cello.” I just wanted to share that with you as a view into the creative process.  You always have your little doubts sometimes. I felt it was a real challenge to make a solo cello record. I’d been practicing a lot and was thinking about and working on the concepts I wanted to present. But then, when it finally came down to it, I suddenly had this moment where I was saying, “Oh my God, am I ready for this?” And when I caught myself thinking that about the cello, I was like, “Are you crazy? What’s the matter with you? Get on with it.” [laughing]. 

PG: Now that you have been making music professionally for sixty years, do you find that you question yourself less than you once did? 

DH: Well, hopefully, you learn a lot as you go on through your life. I think at this stage, I don’t want to say I don’t care, but I just want to play and not judge it. I just want to let out what I have. But I still have times when I question whether I am doing the right thing. When I was first putting the New Quartet together, I was not sure it was going to work. I think anyone creative has these moments where they question whether they are going in the right direction. I think that element can be a positive in your life because it makes you seriously think about what you’re doing and where you want to go. And it makes you try that much harder to make it work to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

I had a good friend, Kenny Wheeler, who was an amazing trumpet player, composer, and arranger. Kenny would question his playing every night, no matter how wonderfully played. I never remember him coming off the bandstand, as you do often as a musician, and saying, “Oh man, that was really great.” Kenny was always feeling like his playing could have been better. And I think that’s part of why he was so incredible. It was part of his whole process. Questioning yourself can be damaging if you let it get the better of you. But Kenny was brave enough to get up on that bandstand every time he played and go for it. To play those incredible phrases and notes that reach up to the heavens. That was a sign of true courage. 

PG: Have you let fear hold you back at all? It does not come across on your recordings, if so.

DH: No. You gotta go for it. It’s no good going in and holding back. You do the best you can with what you have and hope that it works. I mean, I remember listening to Conference of the Birds after we made it. I don’t generally listen to my recordings once I’ve made them. But I do listen to them a lot during mixing. When I was going through that mixing process right after we recorded that album. It was like, “I don’t know. Is that right? Is that good?” We did it in five or six hours and there was only one or two takes and that was it, so there wasn’t a chance to redo things that much. Now, looking back on it, it was a wonderful experience to play with everyone on that record. And I think the record has held up. But at the time, I was certainly criticizing the record to myself.

PG:  It’s always interesting how many musicians don’t go back and listen to their own music. Sonny Rollins, for one, does not. 

DH: It’s funny because I was just listening to an interview on the radio with the great actor Michael Caine. It’s the same thing with his movies. He sees them once just to see how things ended up in editing and all that. And, then he never watches them again.

PG: Changing gears a little, you have recorded with some top bluegrass musicians on Norman Blake / Tut Taylor / Sam Bush / Butch Robins / Vassar Clements / David Holland / Jethro Burns (HDS, 1975), and then, a decade later, with Vassar Clements, John Hartford, Dave Holland (Rounder, 1985). What interested you in exploring bluegrass?

DH: Well, the way it came about was that I’d been living up in the mid-Hudson Valley on and off for the last several years. The first time we moved up there was in ‘72. There, I met John Simon, the record producer, who also lived in the Woodstock area. I used to drive to Woodstock to get groceries. One day, I was driving through and saw John on the sidewalk, walking with another man. And he saw me, flagged me down, and I pulled over. John said, “Oh, Dave, this is John Hartford, and he’s here to do a recording. We were just thinking we’d like to have an acoustic bass player on this recording. Would you be interested in it?” And I said, “Absolutely.” The other musician involved was Norman Blake, an incredible bluegrass player. We spent five days in the studio in Woodstock recording Morning Bugle (Warner Bros., 1972). 

A young man – about eighteen years old – in Philadelphia heard that record. He inherited a small amount from his grandmother’s will and used that money to book the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. A very audacious move. Then he invited all his favorite bluegrass players to play there. He loved bluegrass. He’d happened to have heard Morning Bugle, called me up, and asked if I wanted to come down and do this concert. I agreed, and we did the concert. The show completely sold out, with an audience of three thousand people.

There were about twenty musicians on stage at the end of the concert – mandolins, violins, guitars, dobros,m, everything all across the stage in a line. All different bluegrass players turned out to be a part of it. There were all these great players, bluegrass legends like Cut Taylor. And here’s me at the end of the bass players. Luckily, I played guitar too, so for some of the songs that I didn’t really know, I could kind of anticipate where things were going based on the chord shapes that the guitarists were playing.

After that concert, the young man still had some money left and decided to invite us to Nashville. He went to Nashville with us, and there, we recorded the first record you mentioned. Then I went back and did the other record you mentioned, with John Hartford and the fiddle player, Vassar Clements. So that’s how that whole thing came about. It all came out of that one trip to get groceries, and then subsequently, these other things followed. 

PG: That’s crazy. 

DH: Oh, it was. It was so much fun. I tell you, those musicians can really play. They can really swing, too. 

PG: To go to the other side of the world, you have worked with Anouar Brahem, Alice Coltrane, and Zakir Hussain. How do you feel Eastern influences have entered your own music, if at all? 

DH: Well, it has influenced me through the experience of playing with people like Anouar and Zakir. 

By the way, I just finished another recording with Anouar in September of last year that will be released in March of next year. It’s beautiful. Django Bates is also on piano on the new record. And then there’s also a cellist. So, it’s a quartet with Anour, myself, cello, and piano. It is a beautiful set of music. It’s so sensitive, atmospheric, and beautiful. Seductive music, I would say, and then we’re doing a tour in the spring for the record. 

Those influences come through my relationship with Anouar. I went to Tunisia and started listening to more music – things Anouar suggested when I asked him – and being introduced to some artists I didn’t know from that part of the world. 

And then, of course, Zakir is an incredible musician, and it’s a challenge to play with him. He has an incredible rhythmic understanding of not only Hindustani classical music but also many of the Western forms of music. He’s had extensive experience playing with all kinds of people, including his father. 

PG: You have also explored flamenco music.

DH: Yes, there was also a flamenco project with guitarist Pepe Habichuela. That was also a very good learning experience. I didn’t want to do a fusion record with him. He’s such a master of real, authentic flamenco. And so I asked him, when the project came together, to be my teacher. I wanted him to show me about the music. And so I went back to Spain a few times a year to rehearse with him. We also did a couple of gigs together in Spain. And then we finally did the record, Hands (Dare2, 2010), which came out about two years after our first meeting. I think all of these things have helped broaden my perspective on music. 

PG: Early on, a lot of your music could be classified as “avant-garde.” While you have revisited that space with projects like Uncharted Territories (Dare2, 2018), you have explored a wide range of different music. Do you have a sense of why you did not stay in the avant-garde space? 

DH: Well, that’s never been my thing with music. There are different times in my life when I feel I should focus on different projects, which might be in one area of music or another. I immerse myself in whatever area it is and get involved in it. Really, from the very beginning of playing music, I’ve always been interested in music generally and have enjoyed having new experiences with it. When I lived in London, one of the things I thought about doing there, and did until I came to New York, was studio work, which meant I could play in different contexts. I also did a tour with Roy Orbison when I was in England. So, I’ve always done all kinds of different things. There is usually a main focus going on as well, and have different periods. But around that main focus, I might be involved in other things. And I’m very open to that. I’m mostly just interested in the integrity of the music and the character of the musicians that I’m playing with. 

PG: It would seem like having your own label would also give you more freedom to explore different types of music. Next year, your label, Dare2, will turn twenty. You were producing some of the records you did for ECM towards the end of your time there, but what do you feel you have learned the most from having your own label for the last almost two decades? 

DH: Well, it takes a lot of energy to develop the label, and I’ve only released my own recordings on it. I didn’t want to be responsible for other people’s records. In the last couple of years, I’ve entered into a very nice partnership with Edition Records in England. We released several records with them. My last trio record Another Land (Dare2/Edition, 2021), with Kevin Eubanks and Obed Calvaire was with them. And I’m about to release a duo record with Lionel Loueke that will be coming out in November on Edition. 

PG: What led to the collaboration with Edition?

DH: I decided to do this, first of all, because of Dave Stapleton. Dave runs the label, established the label, and owns the label. He has an incredible understanding of the contemporary record business and how to take advantage of the new criteria that are involved and new opportunities. He has his ear to the ground and knows what’s going on. I’m trying to be a musician, play music, and do all of the things that are involved with that. 

The collaboration came about when we released a record [Good Hope (Edition/Dare2, 2019)] by the Crosscurrents trio with Chris Potter and Zakir. Working with Dave Stapleton’s label to put that record together was such a great experience, and I saw that continuing to work together was a great opportunity,. We have been co-releasing records since. There are more planned for the future, but I don’t want to disperse the energy on those too early until things come together.

PG: Ok, but do you plan on recording the New Quartet? 

DH: Yes. We were planning on recording this week, but something came up with the club where we were planning to record. The club now has an exclusive distribution with another company for things recorded there. I had set up the recording and everything but then discovered, kind of late in the day, that this wasn’t going to be possible. But I’m going to arrange another session with the band, either a studio date or a live recording, as soon as I can. 

PG: As a final, somewhat random question, there is a story that once you lost an incredible bass at a train station. You were on a railway platform when a train came roaring past and whipped the bass and its case out of your hands, destroying the instrument. Is there any truth to that story and if so, were you able to replace the instrument?

DH: Oh, that and several others. But that particular bass I had to replace the next day because I was on tour in Germany with the Gateway trio. Jack and John went and did the next gig as a duo, and I went to Munich to find a new bass. I went to three or four different shops and found a bass I could use on the gig the next day. The one I found wasn’t as beautiful as the instrument I lost. 

But I’ve got to a point now where I don’t think the instrument itself matters that much as long as you can get your sound out of it. If I can tell you a quick story, I went to a concert in ‘69 in London at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was a double bill with Miles Davis’s band with Ron Carter on bass, and the other group was Archie Shepp’s band with Jimmy Garrison. I was sitting quite a ways back in the stalls in the theater, listening to the concert. Ron sounded like himself, and the same in Jimmy’s case. After the concert, someone came up to me and said, “Hey, Dave, did you hear? They lost Jimmy’s bass on a flight coming to London. So they both had to use the same bass.” That’s a big lesson right there because how they sounded had nothing to do with the instrument. It had everything to do with the player. 

A great instrument can give you more, but your sound is your sound. It’s the same with saxophone players. I’ve heard Chris Potter play on several different tenors. To me, they all sound the same. It all sounds like Chris. Chris would point out different qualities between the horns but for most listeners, they are not noticeable. Many bass players these days are using what we call bass du jour, which is using a bass a promoter provides them each night. I’ve heard Ron play several different kinds of bass and other bass players I know, too. But they always sound like themselves.

Ultimately, the sound you get out of any instrument is yourself. The instrument is only a small percentage of it all. The rest is how you touch it, what your left hand does, what your right hand does, what you hear in your head, and the heart and soul that you put into your performance. Those things allow you to find your sound on any instrument you pick up. 

The Dave Holland New Quartet with Kris Davis, Jaleel Shaw, and Nasheet Waits will be performing at Smoke Jazz Club from September 4, 2024 to September 8, 2024. Tickets are available here. You can also live-stream the performances. More information about Dave Holland is available on his website.

Photo credit: Dave Stapleton