If you want to be a jazz musician in the big league, then you’d have to be a superb instrumentalist, but also a good teammate and a professional in every sense. Still, some units just go beyond the sum of their individual talents. That’s when magic happens. It was the case with both of Miles Davis’ quintets, it was the case with The Jazz Messengers, with Headhunters and several other groups that were able to produce pure magic whenever they got up on stage or recorded in the studio. Well, I am far too young to have seen those legendary bands live, but I was just mature enough to see Dave Holland with his quintet in Skopje, some ten years ago. Believe me; that was pure magic! Not just for the picky ears of jazz fanatics but for the whole audience in the venue. Taking the notice that half of the people that go to the Skopje Jazz Festival probably never heard of Dave Holland (being there only for the social benefits of hanging around jazz events!!,) it would have to be something extraordinary to get those people up on their feet after every song ending. The culmination of this music ritual was the very end of the concert. Charlie Haden was scheduled after Holland’s band, and he was treated as the “bigger” star, so Holland wasn’t allowed to play an anchor due to time limitations. But the applause and standing ovations lasted for fifteen minutes. It got so loud and enthusiastic that it was impossible not to see Dave and his band back on stage. They played one or two more songs and left the stage for Haden. It was a heavy burden for Charlie Haden to even go up on stage after what Holland and his bandmates did before him. He even opened his act with the words: “It will be really hard to play after Dave’s concert…”. Some say he was also good. I couldn’t listen to more than two minutes of Haden’s performance. I mean, I respect him, but I didn’t want to lose that cathartic feeling that I and everyone present at that spectacle experienced.
Well, what you see in the background is not the Skopje concert. It is a 2009 live performance for the Mezzo TV channel with the similar lineup as the one I’m so enthusiastically writing about. I know that a video concert is not the same as the real live experience, but if you put some headphones on I’m sure you can come close to the feeling I’m describing. This might just be the most efficient and exciting jazz unit in the past thirty years. Enjoy!
