Pass It On (Dave Holland album)


Pass It On is a 2008 album by the Dave Holland Sextet. The album features a re-worked and expanded version of the quintet. Long-standing collaborator Robin Eubanks is kept on. Dave Holland Big Band members, Antonio Hart and Alex Sipiagin are also featured on this set. Rounding out the all-star rhythm section are Mulgrew Miller and Eric Harland. The resulting performance plays less like a reworked sextet, than that of a very small big band.

Critical reception

An Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastros awarded the album 4 stars, stating, "Using a sextet, upright bassist Holland sets the bar even higher, adding the always tasteful pianist Mulgrew Miller and a four-horn front line that is relentless. This group continues to define jazz perfectly in the 21st century.".
Josef Woodard of JazzTimes wrote "Given the power and familiarity of Dave Holland’s longstanding sextet and the quintet before that, going back to the early ’80s, one point of surprise with his new band and recording is a fundamental change: the presence of piano. Mulgrew Miller does the keyboard honors, and along with the three-horn frontline, he makes the band sound, on first impression at least, like Holland’s most “traditional” band in decades... One of the more exciting aspects of this project, in fact, is the sense of continuity in hearing Holland dipping into his past songbook and applying new textural/ensemble garb. To hear, for example, Holland’s wakeup-call neo-hard-bop tune “Double Vision”-originally from the great 1984 chordless quintet album Seeds of Time-in this new, horns-and-piano thickened format, is to recognize the sweep and significance of the man’s work and musical thinking over the decades. In Holland’s case, the seeds of time keep reaping."

Track listing

  1. "The Sum of All Parts" - 8:11
  2. "Fast Track" - 6:30JAV
  3. "Lazy Snake" - 10:07
  4. "Double Vision" - 8:07
  5. "Equality" - 9:09
  6. "Modern Times" - 5:58
  7. "Rivers Run" - 13:45
  8. "Processional" - 4:33
  9. "Pass It On" - 7:56

    Personnel