Christopher Hollyday - On Course (1990)

This 1990 session sounds like a Blue Note date circa 1966 featuring Jackie McLean. At the age of 20, altoist Christopher Hollyday deserved credit for picking a different role model than anyone else in his generation but his advanced originals, creative choice of notes and high energy are consistently overshadowed by his derivative sound. Hollyday does experiment a bit wth the instrumentation, taking "Impromptu," "In a Love Affair" and "Spontaneous" as duets with respectively bassist John Lockwood, pianist Larry Goldings and drummer Ron Savage. The young rhythm section is excellent and the compositions (all but a melodic one-chorus version of "Memories of You" and Goldings' blues-with-a-bridge "Hit and Run" are the altoist's) are strong but Christopher Hollyday at this point did not have an original voice or message of his own.