It was just two years ago that revered Wolverhampton-born bassist Dave Holland scooped top honours in the 2008 Jazzwise Albums Of The Year New Releases poll coming out on top with his supercharged sextet offering Pass It On. So it’s testimony to his continuing resourcefulness and strengths as both bandleader and composer that his latest album Pathways was particularly popular among the Jazzwise writers this year. The album is another inspired team effort, the Octet boasting a bristling line up of strong individual talents – like the pre-eminent tenorist Chris Potter and young gun altoist/flautist Antonio Hart – all working as one well-oiled unit, fuelled by Holland’s sinewy bass lines and kicked along by new drumming recruit Nate Smith. If anything it’s a summation of Holland’s highly kinetic style of hooking boundless and buoyant grooves to some beautifully constructed and arranged melodies, all delivered with passion and precision.

Jazzwise writer Duncan Heining paid testimony to all these qualities in his review in the May issue of the magazine, stating: “This is as fine an album as Dave Holland has ever made. In a way, it is hard to see how it could have been otherwise. If you were a Michelin three-star chef, these are just the kind of ingredients you would source. A crack team of sous chefs, a rich palette of tastes and flavours, a hint of the exotic and just the right set of textures. It has to sound and feel right, elegant to the ear and refined to the touch. Holland has known many of these players for years. But it’s not just familiarity, more a shared sense of mission and desire to delight. In Holland’s hands, this octet has the fire and range of a big band and by the time these tracks were put down at New York’s Birdland, these guys were smoking.”

Recording this band live also brought another dimension to the music as Holland himself adds: “If they really capture the energy and freedom that the players have when playing live, it can result in some very special recordings. Now we own some fairly mobile recording equipment, we’re getting some excellent results. We use our own mikes for recording and that’s how we did it at Birdland. We’d been there for 4 or 5 nights, so by the time the weekend came around, the band was in full flight. In fact, most of the takes were from the weekend.”

It’s been a good year for bassist-bandleaders as other entries in the Jazzwise end of year Top 10 prove, but Holland’s presence once again also confirms he’s not just the leading double bassist of his generation, but one of jazz’s true master musicians as well.

- Mike Flynn