Conference of the Birds

Holland, Dave

album cover

An Often-Overlooked Summit

A frequent knock on the jazz avant-garde is that the music doesn't swing. That may be true of some free-jazz classics, but right from the opening bars of "Four Winds," this agile quartet assembled by British bassist Dave Holland pretty much demolishes the charge. Over a twisting, skating, medium-brisk pulse, tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers rips out wickedly inventive lines that are two steps and one sharp corner removed from hard bop.

This is swing unmoored. Swing strung from different pillars, freed of its guy wires. Swing taken at leaps across buildings. Swing without the historical baggage.

In the years just before this, Holland had been working with saxophonist Anthony Braxton, pianist Chick Corea, and drummer Barry Altschul in the group known as Circle. Conference of the Birds transplants some of Circle's rhythmic venturing to a pianoless context, and shows how the absence of governing harmony can open up all sorts of possibilities. Holland's originals force the players to explore distinct textures and moods: One piece, "Q & A," involves all four musicians in rapid-fire interchanges, while the more somber flute duet "Now Here (nowhere)" exists in a comforting zone of introspection.

Conference of the Birds doesn't always turn up on the short list of great avant-garde records—it was completely ignored by Ken Burns in his multipart TV documentary Jazz. Within the community of jazz musicians, however, the reverberations from this Conference are still being felt—not much jazz made in the 1970s breathes with the moods, textures, and ferocious freewheeling interaction available here.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1972, ECM
Key Tracks: "Four Winds," "Conference of the Birds."
Catalog Choice: The Razor's Edge
Next Stop: Circle: Paris Concert
Book Page: 362

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