Dave Holland

right i've thought a lot about the musicians who i've worked with that are you know really have a voice have really gotten to a high level you know not Not just sax, I mean actually a lot of them not saxophone players because like people that I've had the chance to work with.

People like Dave Holland and Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner and Jim Hall and on and on and on.

Like these real voices on their instruments.

These are people that I listened to when I was a kid and I idolized and you know I was like wow how do you get that sound? How do you? you know, how did they get that language and then you meet them and you talk to them about music and you know, you're you're talking about you know their their experiences and things that they that they learned from other people and and also just watching you know how people different people process music and how they react to things like it's one thing to listen to Herbie Hancock on the record, but then When you play something and then he's comping and he's reacting, you know, you're like, oh, that's right.

That's kind of what the process is.

And it varies.

Somebody like Dave Holland is quite methodical in a lot of ways, like when he's working on odd meter stuff.

And I realized, oh, yeah, that's a very useful way to internalize that.

we would just sit there in the dressing room and ask Chick questions and talk to Chick.

And he would tell us stories about Tony and about Wayne and about Wynton Kelly sitting in with the band and about, um, uh, Dave Holland and just that whole period of time and return to forever.

There's, um, he said, Chick said something funny.

I remember about Wayne.

And that was really, really cool.

Um, Ruby, can you talk about what you think are the most effective forms of leadership on the bandstand? I remember a great bass player, Dave Holland told me that, you know, when Coltrane joined Miles Davis, Coltrane kept coming up to Miles and saying, what do you want me to play? What do you want me to play? And Miles kept turning his back on him.

And then Trina eventually realized, oh, he brought me in to be myself.

So there's other ways, nonverbal ways of leadership.

I guess you have to be the type of person that can do that and take little things from it but not let it like overwhelm your personality and get diluted you know

well i mean also it's like the the reality is that the the spiritual part of jazz is your own truth like being able to express your own truth but you can't do that if you're you know if if I mean, the magic of music at one time was that you would have Tiny Tim at the Isle of Wight, and then Miles Davis would be coming on next, you know, with Dave Holland.

And then Skinner, you know, it's like, you

know, so like, I mean, you could, you know, so like, I mean, there was this elasticity and people's ears were wide open, but now it's like, Oh, no, no, no.

I'm more interested in like, you know, I dig it.

And I also think that, and I think it just comes from the cohesiveness.

I wanted you to talk to people around, younger drummers, people that are going to hear this, You know, Train used to come to – Dave Holland told me he's like, you know, Train used to keep going up to Miles and being like – when he first joined the band, said, what do you want me to play? What do you want me to play? And Miles kept turning his back on him.

And Train was like really confused by the whole thing and then kept tapping.

What was his name again? andre hayward

andre hayward okay oh yeah yeah yeah of course uh okay so that gets you to atlanta and then that's how you meet betty and then you're doing all these okay i got you and then another i guess another if we're giving shout outs uh we gotta go to when you meet another nea jazz master bassist dave holland uh isn't that while you're at vcu you're at you go to virginia commonwealth university for grad school so how do you run into it

So I started shortly after undergrad in January of 97.

I started a two-year program at Virginia Commonwealth.

And one of the guests that year, the fall of that year, was Dave Holland.

He came.

And that's when we met.

Took a long time to, but I'm so grateful to the musicians who said yes.

That one features Christopher McBride at the alto saxophone, Justin Thomas vibraphone, Josh Ramos at the bass, and Micaiah McRaven at the drums.

Before that, Gary Burton vibraphone, Chick Corea piano bass, Pat Metheny guitar, Roy Haynes drums, and Dave Holland at the bass.

From Like Minds, we heard Question and Answer.

Now here's the stunning vocalist Michael Mayo from his 2024 Fly release.

Catch her wherever you can, guys.

Um, and then you've stu- sung with incredible other musicians, Dave Holland, Lionel Richie, Luciana Souza, um, and yeah, you've, you've sung for the Slovak president.

I mean, you've, you've had- The opportunity to share your craft with audiences across the world, and as you've mentioned, you know, you, you also have had very impactful performances that I really wanna mention, where you organize concerts in prisons, homeless shelters.

You've taught a homeless women choir, which again, thinking back to your beginnings, learning singing and, and community in a church choir, and have co-led regular workshops for teenagers in psychiatric hospitals.

Yeah.

Like you're saying, I remember when I was a teenager, I, I got to see Dave Holland do like a masterclass and he was talking about this exact thing.

And so he played, other people had their bases there and he played a bit on his own base.

And then he like, he played a bit on some other bases just to prove this point.