# CD review: Dave Holland, Kenny Barron – Ronnie Scott’s 2020: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/06/21/cd-review-dave-holland-kenny-barron-ronnie-scotts-2020-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2020-06-21T23:44:05+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The British-born bass player Dave Holland’s recent own-name albums include free
improv with a starry transatlantic band and tough contemporary quartet jazz featuring
sax and guitar. **

At this gig, he explored the nooks and crannies of piano trio jazz with Kenny Barron,
who launched his career with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie shortly before Holland joined
Miles Davis in 1968. Barron’s regular drummer, Johnathan Blake, was the third and
equal partner. The trio’s focused intimacy and theme-and-variation approach were
established with the first notes of the Thelonious Monk rarity “Worry Later”. Barron’s
melody twinned clarity with harmonic nous, Holland marked the form with firm counterpoint
underneath, and drummer Blake hinted at Latin jazz. Barron’s first variation smoothed
out the angles of Monk’s niggly theme; the second reintroduced them as dissonant
twiddles over angular stride. Fluent bursts dominated the third, and the fourth 
introduced the distinctive left-hand bass of Cuban jazz. A dozen dense, detailed
choruses later, Holland took the lead and matched Barron’s invention, following 
the form and making every note count. “Second Thoughts” came next, upbeat and modal
with a passage of mid-tempo swing. Here the trio’s narrative arc moved inexorably
from solo bass to intense piano high, before fading on the theme. Drummer Blake 
set up Holland’s New Orleans-flavoured original “Pass it On” with a cross-stitch
weave of fractured press rolls, staggered bass drum thumps and splashed cymbals.
Barron engaged the crowd with two-handed intricacy and fluent lines, Holland with
bluesy twangs and Blake with rhythmic panache. But it was the way the three combined
that held the attention. Barron’s multi-faceted approach was matched by Holland 
avoiding the obvious without losing sight of the tune, and Blake’s rhythms inspired
rather than intruded. The result was a performance packed with detail and strong
in narrative drive. The set initially expanded on compositions from the trio’s newly
released album Without Deception, and Ellington’s rhapsodic ballad “Warm Valley”
came near the end of the set. But elsewhere, the trio cast a wider net. The late
Kenny Wheeler waltz “Mabel” delivered impressionism and warmth, and Charlie Parker’s
bop oddity “Segment” had fluent lines and strong walking bass. The finale, “The 
Theme”, combined tricky counterpoint and headlong modern jazz. Holland said he learnt
the piece at the soundcheck, but you would never have guessed. The full first house
demanded one more, and eventually it came: Monk’s “In Walked Bud” — a jazz repertory
classic reborn.

Pianist Kenny Barron and bassist Dave Holland have covered a vast amount of sonic
terrain throughout their brilliant careers. On _Without Deception_, they co-lead
a trio that includes the spectacular drummer Johnathan Blake, pairing versatility
and musicianship in a collection of originals and shrewdly chosen covers that feels
like an expansion of their conversational duo album _The Art of Conversation_ (Impulse!
Records, 2014).

Barron-penned “_Porto Alegre_” opens the album with a lovely bossa groove that relies
on Blake’s hot snare tones to make the rhythm even more attractive. Besides revealing
a strong unity, the three musicians enchant with personal statements abundant in
rich idioms. Carrying something of Jobim, “_Until Then_” offers another alluring
canvas painted with elegant bossa nova colors, while on the title track and “_Speed
Trap_”, also written by Barron, the trio delivers the goods with a different posture.
While the former is a winsome 12-bar blues with plenty of blue notes and feel-good
trading fours, the latter connects bass and drums in a spiraling swinging verve,
and channels streams of cascading piano notes through it. Barron’s flagrant rhythmic
figures easily evolve into smart lines that prompt the drummer to respond, and Holland
employs irresistible slides and wise interval hops to complement his forward-moving
pizzicato.

The post-bop lyricism evinced on Mulgrew Miller’s “_Second Thoughts_” made me think
of that special vibe found on Barron’s staggering album Scratch (Enja, 1985), released
35 years ago and on which Holland also performed.

Though “_Secret Places_” waltzes with the poignancy of Bill Evans, it develops with
the tender touch of Barron, differing from the groove-centric irreverence of “_Pass
It On_”, a composition by Holland that first saw the light of day on his 2008 sextet
album of the same name. Showing off his monster technique, the bassist is both the
glue that holds everything together and the booster this music needs to flow ahead.
Blake’s terrific wallops and Barron’s linear tangents contribute to the positive
effect.

The renditions of Duke Ellington’s “_Warm Valley_” and Thelonious Monk’s “_Worry
Later_” head straight for their original musical splendor, but the trio garnishes
them with their personal traits.

01. Intro
 02. Seascape 03. Talk 04. Second Thoughts 05. Pass It On 06. Talk 07.
Mabel 08. Segment 09. Warm Valley 10. Talk 11. Worry Later

**Dave Holland – double bass**
 **Kenny Barron – piano** **Jonathan Blake – drums**

Ronnie Scott’s, London U.K. 10 March 2020.

![Dave Holland delivers piano trio classics with clarity and narrative punch  | 
Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%
2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3ac56f20-62c7-11ea-abcc-
910c5b38d9ed?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700)

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