At the pinnacle of his career, Dave Holland has settled into the unassuming role of jazz master. The multi-award and poll-winning bassist, composer, arranger and bandleader leads two of the most vibrant groups in jazz: the Dave Holland Quintet and the Dave Holland Big Band. He has collaborated in two of the top jazz collectives of the decade: the ScoLoHoFo quartet comprised of Holland, John Scofield, Joe Lovano and Al Foster and the Herbie Hancock-piloted all-star quartet including Wayne Shorter and Brian Blade.

Though he's too busy to be fully engaged in outside projects, Holland has played on recent Roy Haynes albums and recorded trio dates with such leaders as Geri Allen and Kenny Wheeler-all outings that he says he could not pass up. He even has taken his recording career into his own hands, launching his own label imprint, Dare2 Records in 2005 (distributed by Sunnyside in the U.S., Universal Music Jazz France internationally), after a fertile three-decades-plus association with ECM Records.
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At the pinnacle of his career, Dave Holland has settled into the unassuming role of jazz master. The multi-award and poll-winning bassist, composer, arranger and bandleader leads two of the most vibrant groups in jazz: the Dave Holland Quintet and the Dave Holland Big Band. He has collaborated in two of the top jazz collectives of the decade: the ScoLoHoFo quartet comprised of Holland, John Scofield, Joe Lovano and Al Foster and the Herbie Hancock-piloted all-star quartet including Wayne Shorter and Brian Blade.

Though he's too busy to be fully engaged in outside projects, Holland has played on recent Roy Haynes albums and recorded trio dates with such leaders as Geri Allen and Kenny Wheeler-all outings that he says he could not pass up. He even has taken his recording career into his own hands, launching his own label imprint, Dare2 Records in 2005 (distributed by Sunnyside in the U.S., Universal Music Jazz France internationally), after a fertile three-decades-plus association with ECM Records.

A onetime sideman with two titans of jazz, Thelonious Monk (a short tenure) and Miles Davis (a seminal experience during the trumpeter's Bitches Brew era), Holland made his debut as a leader in the early 1970s. He broke in as a leader with Music for Two Basses (1971) with Barre Phillips and Conference of the Birds (1972) with a band featuring Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton. Holland also expanded his work as a side musician to include recording with a diversity of artists such as Bonnie Raitt (Give It Up, 1972), John Hartford (Morning Bugle, 1972) and Lee Konitz (Satori, 1974).

In recent years, his recording career has continued to flourish, recording such milestone albums as his quintet CD, Extended Play: Live at Birdland (2003) and two Grammy-winning big band discs, What Goes Around (2002) and the potent follow-up Overtime (2005). Continuing this impressive creative streak into 2006, Holland released a new quintet album, entitled Critical Mass. The album is the first new studio recording by the Dave Holland Quintet to be released in over five years and marks drummer Nate Smith's debut recording with the band.

Additionally Critical Mass features Holland's core working-band members Chris Potter on saxophones, Robin Eubanks on trombone and Steve Nelson on vibraphones. All contribute music to the project, in keeping with the leader's supportive role anchoring the band with his bass and encouraging his players to realize their own voices. "I've tried to maintain the supportive role of the instrument and at the same time expand it so that it has more active dialogue with the other instruments," he says. "Someone will write a piece, but it only starts there, and everyone puts in their ideas and how they are going to interpret it. Those are the things you want to do in a supportive way-not vying for attention and competing with each other."

Not willing to rest on his laurels, Holland is committed to taking his music to new plateaus. "I want to continue to stay engaged in my work," he says. "I want it to develop. That's what keeps me interested and involved. I don't want to perform night after night and play in a routine. I want the music to be alive and real. I want to be enthusiastic. By extension, that translates to the audience."

In regards to his quintet, Holland sees his band as representing the evolution of different types of rhythmic structures and forms that has been transforming the face of jazz in the last two decades. In his search to keep the music vital, Holland says the band has delved into the rhythmic traditions of Africa, India, South America and the Caribbean, as well as the innovations in contemporary music in the hip-hop and R&B worlds. "This is historic with jazz," he says. "Jazz has always taken whatever the contemporary music of the day is and integrated it into the language. It happened when jazz musicians took Broadway songs and made them into standard tunes. Now more musicians are writing original music and integrating contemporary aesthetics and styles. We use a lot of references to contemporary rhythmic feels. And, of course, I see the music as both going backward and forward."

In talking with Holland in person, one is struck by his innate shyness as well as a sense of humility. When conversing, his demeanor is similar to his stage presence. Holland quietly leads his bands with a steady bass pulse in sets of swinging originals that display a flawless balance of form and freedom. He evokes a calming effect-relaxed, unhurried, assured.