Customer Reviews

Rarum X (Dig)

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4 star:		(1)
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I was going to make a sampler to introduce a friend of mine to the music of Dave Holland, among the premiere jazz group leaders today, but this terrific compilation has made this totally unnecessary -- I will recommend this CD instead.

Rarum X gives a compact cross section of Holland's innovative ECM career as a leader/composer, capturing many of the most memorable tunes. It's got ostinato groove tunes (How's Never, Nemesis), songs built around some of the most complex and satisfying quintet interplay in modern jazz (Prime Directive, Homecoming, You I Love), early Holland gem compositions (Four Winds, Conference of the Birds). There's even a Holland cello solo (Inception) from his Life Cycle recording.

For a compilation this is very well selected and sequenced. Holland personally selected the recording, and I think he intentionally put his best recognized compositions at the end, giving it incredible staying power in your CD player.

Highly, highly recommended.

Dave Holland's "Rarum" has 11 songs from 11 different albums, and they fill the CD with 76 minutes of music. On a CD as willfully diverse and packed full as this, I wonder what song choice compromises were made, since the tunes are not equally good. I don't have any of the original CD's represented here, so this CD was a good introduction to the ECM solo part of Dave Holland's career. "How's Never" opens the CD on a relatively breezy note. We then go forward and backward through Dave Holland's career. There are no solo bass songs, but "Inception" is a good solo cello song. "Equality" has a vocal by Cassandra Wilson. The CD ends strongly with "Prime Directive", "Homecoming", and "Conference Of The Birds". "Conference Of The Birds" is my favorite, it has a witchy melody, and great playing by Holland, Anthony Braxton, and Sam Rivers. I recommend this CD if you don't have the original albums.