Dave Holland Trio

Triplicate is the only album by the trio of bassist Dave Holland, alto saxophonist Steve Coleman and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Recorded in New York in 1988, a year after the last album of Holland's quintet, it strips that band's sound down to one horn, bass and drums. With no piano or guitar, every line is exposed, and the music moves between Holland's own tunes, pieces by his partners, two jazz classics and a traditional song.

Coleman had been the quintet's altoist, playing alongside Kenny Wheeler, Robin Eubanks and Marvin "Smitty" Smith on The Razor's Edge (1987). DeJohnette and Holland had long shared a rhythm section, among other places in the trio Gateway with John Abercrombie, whose first ECM album appeared in 1975. Triplicate was recorded digitally in March 1988 at the Power Station in New York, with James Farber as engineer and Lee Townsend producing. Holland wrote four of the nine pieces, Coleman and DeJohnette one each.

Coleman's Games opens the set with light, playful interplay, and Charlie Parker's Segment brings it to an ecstatic close. Duke Ellington's Take the Coltrane invites comparison with the Ellington and Coltrane original, Coleman plays it with classic bop energy, while DeJohnette drives hard behind Holland's quieter solo. Holland's Rivers Run, dedicated to the composer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers, begins with an unaccompanied bass statement and grows into a drum feature that lifts the whole band. DeJohnette's Blue and the traditional African Lullaby, arranged by Holland, bring the volume down.

The Sydney Morning Herald, quoted by ECM, singled out Coleman as "the best altoist to have emerged in a long time". In its view, Holland's bass pushed his two partners into their most powerful work to that date. Reviewing the reissue in Jazz Journal in 2019, Gareth Thomas wrote that the absence of harmonic accompaniment "allows the remaining musicians to really stand out", with each solo delivered with great clarity.

This is the CD edition of ECM 1373, first released in 1988. It was reissued on 17 May 2019 in the Touchstones series, through which ECM has been bringing key catalogue albums back into circulation since 2008.