Craig Taborn's Electric Turning Point
Taborn's switch between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes gives Prism a voltage that Holland's earlier groups never had.
What makes Prism sound different from Dave Holland's work over the previous three decades is Craig Taborn. He's the variable. Holland had built his reputation on acoustic quartets of remarkable tightness and restraint, but here Taborn moves between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes, and that shift—from one instrument to another within the same session—creates an instability, an edge. The Rhodes especially brings a warmth and a slight sag that acoustic piano doesn't have. It's a deliberate softness that somehow makes the band louder.
The other players respond to it. Kevin Eubanks, back from decades on late-night television, plays with a hunger that comes through in every phrase. Eric Harland on drums isn't keeping time so much as pushing, using updated jazz-rock patterns with actual force. Holland anchors the whole thing on double bass, but the bandmembers all contributed original compositions, which means no one is playing someone else's blueprint. Everybody has stake in what happens.
John Fordham heard it immediately: a "considerably louder, bluesier identity" than anything Holland had done before. The album generated genuine word-of-mouth—people calling it album of the year before it finished circulating. For a leader forty years into a career, that's not nostalgia. That's a band finding something new because one player shifted approach, and everyone followed.
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