Dave Holland Quintet - Prime Directive (Live)

[clarke68]

They call it an album, but it's really a single track download from the Apple Music Store.

Good performance, different than the one on Extended Play (all I really have to compare it to). Holland plays longer on the intro, Chris Potter plays alto (and with more urgency than anyplace I've ever heard him), and Nate Smith replaces Billy Kilson on drums.

About 5 minutes into I was really missing Kilson, but by the end I started to get into what Smith was doing. At first I thought he was simply a more minimalist drummer, later on I thought he played more simply, but more powerfully (like a rock drummer). At this point it's clear to me that he's a different cat, but I can't really explain how...he just seems to "come out" at different times that Kilson did, and so emphasizes different things.

Robin Eubanks & Chris Potter's duet section doesn't seem quite as tight as the one on Extended Play, but on the other hand it's more exploratory. I get the impression that they've been playing these together long enough that they've lost some of their fear of making mistakes, and so they let it fly all the more aggressively.

The "stand up and shout at your speakers" moment in this, for me, is when the band comes back in after the duet. On Extended Play they kind of ease back into it...Holland cues the band, Kilson comes in a measure or two later, and Steve Nelson a measure or two after that. Works fine, but on this download version the whole band cracks back in all at once, bringing the energy level up to 11. Potter responds by blowing the living daylights out of his horn as if his life depended on it...a fantastic moment.

Okay, but is it worth $4.49 for the download? While that is steep, particularly by iTunes standards, I'm glad to have it. I doubt I'd feel compelled to collect every one that ever comes out if he starts going "David Murray" on us, but for now Holland is anything but over-recorded, so any chance to hear another take from this band is awesome. Nice that it's over 17 minutes long (the version on Extended Play is 13). Even nicer that, although I have no idea, I suspect that Holland sees more of this $4.49 than he saw out of the $25 I shelled out for his last ECM release. If that helps keep the music playing, then it's worth it to me.