THREE'S THE CHARM
The bassist Dave Holland triumphs on three recent albums. Homecoming
(ECM), by the cooperative trio Gateway, finds him in a loose and playfully
explosive mood. Ones All (Intuition), a glowing solo recital, emphasizes
Holland's technique and keen historical perspective. The most recent, Dream
of the Elders (ECM), which introduces his new quartet, reminds us that
Holland is also an exceptional composer and bandleader.
The new band is a forum for the younger players to realize their budding
personalities. In more than a decade of recording, the vibist Steve Nelson has
never found a better setting for his angular yet sparkling ideas, and the
drummer Gene Jackson finally adds nuance to his formidable power. Eric Person,
heard primarily on the alto saxophone, is the greatest revelation--his
patient, melodic solos make even the knottiest tunes sing.
Holland's music might be called deceptively complex--metric labyrinths and
frequent shifts in time signature are mediated by graceful themes that stick in
the mind. Holland's setting of the Maya Angelou poem "Equality," featuring the
guest vocalist Cassandra Wilson, gives the most obvious example of his
lyricism, although even the hard-swinging pieces retain a warm undercurrent. As
the bassist, Holland is an unbroken line that occasionally peeks through in
solo yet is no less eloquent when heard in support. Elders's extended
performances may get limited air play even though the keen balance of the
quartet and Holland's omnipresent logic ensure clarity and coherence.
--B.B.
Dave Holland
Photo: Richard Laird
TALES OF THE DARK SIDE
Greg Dulli, the guitarist-singer-songwriter of the
Afghan
Whigs, occupies a bleak cosmos in which the possibility of love means the
possibility of lies, betrayal, cruelty, craving, self-recrimination,
significant-other-recrimination, and unrelieved misery for all eternity.
Therefore he is a pillar of alternative rock, and the Afghan Whigs' latest
album, Black Love (Elektra), will speak to anyone whose relationship is
crumbling and who indeed expects to feel unrelieved misery for all eternity.
"Beware of who you trust in this world," he sings in "Blame, Etc." "Beware the
lies about to unfurl." Like someone who can't stop wig-gling a loose tooth,
however, Dulli keeps returning to the scene of his pain. By the end of Black
Love he seems to have relented in "Summer's Kiss" and "Faded"--two songs in
which Dulli addresses his lover in civil terms, offering himself as someone to
believe in, wishing that she were someone he could believe in--although he has
hardly freed himself from his doomed cosmos. "The secret's gonna kill you," he
sings in the final lines of the final song. "In the end it's gonna kill you."
Well, something's going to kill you, so it might as well be love. Until then
you can listen to some cathartic guitar bashing.
--C.M.Y.
Dulli fronting the Afghan Whigs
Photo: Danny Clinch
A SOFTER SOUND FROM THE EMERALD ISLE
Born in Philadelphia, raised in Ireland, Seamus Egan won four All-Ireland music
championships, on the flute, the tenor banjo, the mandolin, and the tin
whistle, at the age of fifteen. He also plays the guitar, the uilleann pipes,
and the bodhrán (a goatskin hand drum). Lest you roll your eyes at the
thought of another child prodigy long on virtuosity and short on feeling, you
should know that Egan is now twenty-six and has the sort of extended
résumé that would lead one to suspect all kinds of feeling in his
music. Why else would he be doing so many sessions with other prominent
musicians, not to mention the soundtrack for The Brothers McMullen? On
his third solo album, When Juniper Sleeps (Shanachie), Egan goes for the
contemplative side of traditional Irish music. You won't dance a jig (except
maybe on "The Czar of Munster"), you won't sing along (it's all instrumental),
and you'll marvel at Egan's virtuosity only where he wants you marveling.
Mostly what you'll do is sit there and think your own deep thoughts. For all
his flash, Egan really knows what to do with a quiet ballad, surrounding a
delicate melody with plenty of space for the listener's own emotions to color.
Purists might object to a tinge of New Age, but when were purists ever right
about anything? Egan captures the majesty of traditional Irish music and then
nudges it just enough to make it his own. --C.M.Y.
Seamus Egan
David Katzentstein
Bob Blumenthal is a jazz critic for The Boston Globe.
Charles M. Young
reviews popular music for Playboy, Musician, and other publications.
