Freedom Call: Sextet - Unity Dave Holland

• 1 Sextet: Step To It 09:13
• 2 Sextet: Fast Track 10:59
• 3 Sextet: Ebb and Flow 14:08
• 4 Sextet: Lazy Snake 11:33
• 5 Sextet: Sum of All Parts 07:52
• 6 Sextet: Mr B 12:48
• 7 Sextet: Modern Times 09:52
• Total Runtime 01:16:25

Info for Freedom Call: Sextet - Unity

Dave Holland's Freedom Call captures the breadth of his musical vision through previously unreleased live recordings from his Sextet, Quintet and Prism.

Widely regarded as one of the defining voices in modern jazz, Dave Holland announces Freedom Call, the first box set collection of his distinguished career. Scheduled for release in October 2026 on Edition Records to coincide with his 80th birthday, the collection brings together previously unreleased live recordings from three defining ensembles in Holland’s career – Sextet, Quintet and Prism – captured live and presented together for the first time.

Freedom Call captures the collaborative spirit and creative ambition that have defined Dave Holland’s work for more than five decades. These live performances bring together some of the most accomplished improvisers of their generation, revealing ensembles built on trust, deep listening and a shared musical language forged over years of collaboration.

Freedom Call stands as a document of artistic continuity and creative growth. Across these recordings, listeners hear a bandleader committed to developing long-term musical relationships and creating environments where individual voices contribute to a shared identity. The result is a collection that celebrates Dave Holland’s work as a composer, bassist and bandleader, alongside the enduring power of collective improvisation.

Sextet: Unity
Dave Holland, bass
Antonio Hart, alto saxophone
Alex Sipiagin, trumpet, flugelhorn
Robin Eubanks, trombone
Mulgrew Miller, piano
Eric Harland, drums

Mixed by Scott Petito at NRS Recording Studios, Catskill, NY
Mastered by Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound, NYC

Dave Holland
is a bassist, composer, bandleader whose passion for musical expression of all styles, and dedication to creating consistently innovative music ensembles have propelled a professional career of more than 50 years, and earned him top honors in his field including multiple Grammy awards.

Holland stands as a guiding light on acoustic and electric bass, having grown up in an age when musical genres—jazz, rock, funk, avant-garde, folk, electronic music, and others—blended freely together to create new musical pathways. He was a leading member of a generation that helped usher jazz bass playing from its swing and post-bop legacy to the vibrancy and multidiscipline excitement of the modern era, extending the instrument’s melodic, expressive capabilities. Holland’s virtuosic technique and rhythmic feel, informed by an open-eared respect of a formidable spread of styles and sounds, is widely revered and remains much in demand. To date, His playing can be heard on hundreds of recordings, with more than thirty as a leader under his own name.

As a leader and collaborator, Holland continues to tour the world and it comes as no surprise that he has and still serves the music in an educational role, having worked during the 1980s as artistic director of the Banff Centre’s jazz summer program (Canada), and as a faculty member for two years at the New England Conservatory of Music in the ‘90s, where he still serves as an artist in residence (as he does at the Royal Academy of Music.) He has also been elected a Fellow of the Guildhall School—his alma mater—and has received honorary doctorates from Birmingham Conservatoire (UK), Berklee College of Music, and the New England Conservatory.

Most recently, Holland was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (UK)—a rare honor as membership is limited to 300 living musicians—and he’s been named a 2017 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Over the years and through countless musical experiences, Holland has come to define his purpose as a musician—and he articulates it well: “I’m trying to create music that exists on multiple levels, such as simpler elements along with more complex elements. To me, a lot of great art, whether it’s visual, musical or written, has an ability to do those things—to offer some fundamental truths that echo in people, yet at the same time, introduce them to a new way of looking at those fundamentals that gives them a little different perspective…

This album contains no booklet.