In Bassist Holland's Little-Big Band, Continuity Fosters Creativity

Bassist Dave Holland has had so many accomplishments in his long career that no one should be surprised that he's recently taken on yet another musical challenge: leading and writing for a big jazz band. Not quite completely big, in the sense that the group he's recorded with, and is now touring with, is 13 pieces, three or four shy of the traditional full big jazz band instrumentation.

On Thursday night, the Holland little-big band makes its West Coast debut appearance at UCLA's Royce Hall, with most of the same personnel as on the just-released, already critically praised ECM recording, "What Goes Around."

"There are a few players who couldn't make the tour because of schedule conflicts," says Holland. "Mark Turner is replacing Chris Potter, who's touring in support of his own new album [and appearing at the Jazz Bakery through Sunday], and we have replacements for trumpeter Earl Gardner, who's in the 'Saturday Night Live' band, and Andre Hayward, who's working with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Otherwise, it's the same guys."

Working with "the same guys" is something that has been important to Holland since he first began leading his own groups in the early '80s.

"It's a premise that's always been important to me," he says, "to keep a continuity of players as much as I can, because it gives us the possibility of creating projects with some growth and development.

"Take recording, for example. We're planning to do a new album with the big band in November. So what we're doing now is working out the music on the road. It's a principle I've always used in my small group recording: Go into the studio to record only after we've had a chance to explore the music and mature it, to give it a chance to be discovered and investigated. A musical conversation only starts with the notes that you put on paper. After that, you have to start getting into it, running with it, doing things with it to see where it takes you."

Holland's previous writing experience for a large group--his big band consists of four saxophones, three trumpets, three trombones, piano, vibes and drums, along with the leader's bass--was limited. But by starting with the sort of harmonic textures and rhythmic flow characteristic of his quintet, he has done a remarkable job of maintaining a kind of small group freedom within a large ensemble setting.