After a relatively long wait since his last studio album containing original music, The Sixteen Men of Tain was released in 2000, six years after his 1994 album; Hard Hat Area. Though the overall sound of his music had been slightly changing for each album, Holdsworth now took the music in significantly different direction. With its acoustic and jazzy sound, The Sixteen Men of Tain is often referred to as his finest album, proving wrong all those who assumed
his best work was behind him. David R. Adler writes the following for Allmusic.com:
“Coming on the heels of some rather mediocre efforts, The Sixteen Men of Tain is startlingly superb. Holdsworth has stripped away the distracting banks of keyboards and allowed his soaring, gliding guitar to shine through in a way it hasn't since the 1980s. Even the Synthaxe, Holdsworth's signature guitar synthesizer, sounds organic and immediate, not to mention far less prevalent than on previous albums.”53 One of the keys to this new sound is the change of instrumentation and line-up within the group. The SynthAxe has replaced the keyboard and contributes in a much more subtle way that often in the past. As this instrument is a midi-controller its sound bears the witness of the technological advancement that had been made since his 1994 release. The bass guitar has also been replaced with an acoustic bass, undoubtedly playing a huge role in the overall expression of the music. In an interview with Mike Flynn from the website munkio.com Holdsworth speaks of how this change came to be:
"The fact that Dave Carpenter played acoustic bass was nice because I was like
"maybe it would be nice if you played acoustic bass on this record. (..)That's the beauty of it as well because he, like a lot of the other bass guitar players I've played with, he plays a lot. If you put Dave on bass guitar he's playing all the time and he plays chords I keep telling him I'm going to buy him a one string bass guitar! So giving him the acoustic bass was great. It was a good element to have and I think it also
53 http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:dbfqxqwkldfe~T1
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added something to the sound, which also important to loads of people's perception of it.”54
Another key-contribution to the album was made by drummer Gary Novak. While earlier drummers within the band, Husband and Chad Wackerman among other, had a hard, energetic style of playing, Novak stays closer to the jazz tradition, allowing for softer dynamic and even swing-feel. In an August 2000 article by Jazztimes.com Bill Murkowski praise the drummers playing on the title track, presented in the upcoming analysis: “Novak’s crisp but understated approach along with his hip time displacement sets a more intimate vibe for the surging title track. More favoring the Roy Haynes school of elastic time feel and creative overplaying than a more blatant backbeat sensibility, Novak’s playing here brilliantly underscores yet another stellar example of Holdsworth’s signature chordal voicings and uncanny legato flow over complex moving harmonies. Holdsworth has never swung this hard.”55
Throughout his career his sound has often been heavily influenced by other contemporary music, if not in form and structure, than in timbre, character and groove. However, on The Sixteen Men of Tain he has created a record that seems as timeless as any legendary jazz album. The complete absence of any resistance between his musical expression, and the production and entirety of the album, makes it a monument in his discography. In the jazz times article he tells of his perception of how the album came to be:
“The interpretation of my original music can be played in so many different ways, almost like different kinds of styles. (..) And as I began playing with Gary Novak and Dave Carpenter a couple of years ago, I could hear that the interpretation of it was pushing into a different direction. And it sounded really kind of natural. So I basically wrote the material that was on this record with that in mind, because I knew that Gary Novak’s interpretation is a different kind of thing from the way that Gary Husband’s interpretation of it would be.”
54 http://www.munkio.com/words/allan_holdsworth.html
55 http://jazztimes.com/articles/20372-allan-holdsworth-one-man-of-trane
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In an interview by Guitar Magazine in march 2008 he presents us with that which was his overall aim for the recording Sixteen Men of Tain. It would be fair to imply that he met the standard of his goal in a remarkable way.
“I struggled to find a way to put more of a rock sound into a traditional jazz trio setting, where a lot of the music is kind of soft, while at the same time making the electric guitar sound less gnarly.”56
56 http://ofeuillerat.free.fr/documents/itw/Cleveland%20itw%2008.htm
76 3.3.2 The Sixteen Men of Tain
TRACK 11
Comparred to ”Pud Wud” where the form and chord-progressions are relatively simple and accessible, “The Sixteen Men of Tain” presents a different level of complexity with regards to form and harmony. From the character of the music it is easy to get an impression that the number of different parts is relatively few, but some of these very similar segments may not share a common chord-progression. Instead they share
the same melodic or rhythmical ideas. The sound is mostly soft and with very discreet accentuations that sets the music apart from Holdsworth’s earlier rock-inspired dynamic. All in all this song, as with many of the other tracks on the album, express a calm and patient mood with very strong references to music found in more traditional jazz trios.
In addition to guitar, acoustic bass and drums, a SynthAxe contributes with somewhat sustained and constant chords discreetly setting a harmonic foundation in the music. The role of the SynthAxe remains modest throughout the song and avoids obstructing the experience of the music as a trio performance.
Form:
00:00 – 00:55: Head (ABAC) 00:55 – 01:36: Bass solo (over head) 01:36 – 01:54: C-part from head 01:54 – 04:42: Guitar solo 04:42 – 04:52: B-Part from head 04:54 – 05:34: Drumsolo (A & B-part) 05:34 – 06:26: Part A & C
05:34 – 06:26: Part A & C
01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00