Since their auspicious debut at the 2017 Durango Ragtime and Early Jazz Festival, the Holland-Coots Jazz Quintet has amazed the jazz and ragtime world with their energy, musicality, and humor. As a group, they work together as brothers – each a wonderful soloist and an absolute marvel as a team player, ready to be lyrical or hot, bluesy, rampaging, or sentimental. The HCJQ recorded their first CD in July 2017, a tribute to the great Thomas “Fats” Waller called This Is So Nice It Must Be Illegal, which was met with radiant reviews.
“Their expression of musical creativity, lyrical, warm, sometimes hilarious, celebrates the joyous merrymaker, but it is more an outpouring of devotion for Fats and what he did so open-heartedly ... the band made magic happen, song after song.” –Michael Steinman, Jazz Lives
“The spirit of Waller’s music is captured by these cats, but they put their own stamp on it. Each of the players is a first-rate exponent of playing classic jazz.”
–Joseph Lang, Jersey Jazz
"Great artists know that passion without control is nothing. Together, they scrape the clouds. . .
Hearing that performance, one can talk or think of Bunny Berigan, Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw, and many others. But for once, let us celebrate Caparone, Zimmerman, Pikal, Holland, Coots: people who understand how difficult it is to create Beauty and then do it, in front of our eyes, time after time. Those moments when the dancer and the dance are one: so rare, so compelling"
Michael Steinman Jazz Lives
