A short rave

Dave Holland - Extended Play (ECM 2003)

Go buy it. Now.

Okay, a tiny bit more detail:

A lot rawer sound- and playing-wise than the studio albums.

Holland's bass sounds exceptionally good (it's not often I delight simply in a bass player's tone and nimbleness).

The Potter-Eubanks duets get a lot of (deserved) press, but the Kilson-Holland duets are just as phenomenal. Kilson is a basher, but shows that low volume is no hindrance when duetting with the bassist-leader. Both times I saw this pairing (in Octet and Big Band configurations; when I saw the Quintet, Nate Smith subbed for Kilson), they left me in awe and their pleasure in playing together was obvious.

Juggler's Parade is still awesome (even if Nelson's marimba sounds a bit dinky, rather than lush and watery-woody as on the original studio version): 4.5 melodies at once! (Kilson's drum pattern is a melody in itself, and I'm counting the saxophone and trombone counterpoint as 1.5 melodies) Prime Directive is stripped down to its bare essentials (two riffs) and blown apart.

I almost always find double albums to be too long. Not so here. It's well over two hours long, but the time flies by.

The discs are well-paced. On disc 1 for example, the first three tunes build to a cumulative, exciting climax, which needs to be, and is, followed by a relaxing ballad.

The only slight let-downs are: a) Steve Nelson is way too much in pensive mode. The last time I saw him he was very expressive and soulful, it's too bad none of that is on display here; b) Who at ECM thought that black was easily legible on a dark green background?

Overall, easily some of the best recorded jazz from 2003 that I heard.