Everything
ZJFT 2023

This is truly beautiful music in the odd combination of trumpet and harp. The opening concert at the Aduard monastery church will put your body and mind into a meditative cycling tour mode. Giovanna Pessi and Tom Arthurs met in the circle of the ECM label. They have been operating their trumpet/harp duo for three years now. The repertoire hearkens back to both western classical and oriental music. Musical treasures from India, Chile and Uganda are incorporated into their music. Brit Tom Arthurs was one of the stars of the Miles Perkin Quartet at Niehove, last year. Swiss harpist Giovanna Pessi is both active in classical music and in the Norwegian Christian Wallumrød Ensemble.

The New Dutch Jazz Quintet consists of five young jazz musicians from the Prins Claus Conservatory. Hard-bop and post-bop are the inspirations for the band. Their role models are greats like Hank Mobley and Wayne Shorter. The band has a varied colour palette and easily shifts between modern and ‘classic’ jazz music. The overall idea: It’s okay to swing!

The 42-strong North Pole Orchestra will play the opening concert Who s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue on the stage of Zummerbühne in Maarhuizen. With Oene van Geel, Steven Kamperman, Maripepa Contreras, Suzan Veneman and Farid Sheek. CLARINETtist Steven Kamperman wrote pieces during his residency at the Van Doesburghuis in Paris, which he specially adapted for the ZomerJazzFietsTour for the 42-piece North Pole Orchestra. In addition, multicolored pieces by Oene van Geel, oboist Maripepa Contreras, TRUMPETtiste Suzan Veneman and Daf Drum player Farid Sheek.

A saxophone quartet is no longer a regular sight. The Artvark Saxophone Quartet has been involved in special collaborations (with Peter Erskine, Doudou n’Diaye Rose, Claron McFadden and others) since 2005. Via Philip Glass’s minimal music they now arrive at Arvo Pärt and Aphex Twin for their tenth album, Mother of Thousand. For this project, the guys retreated to their self-built studio for a year. Looking for that one truffle has never felt so urgent before. The quartet experimented with brief ideas as the starting point for the new music. The result is a dreamworld full of sound and space, hypnotizing patterns and unadulterated blues. A soundtrack for an adventurous cycling tour.

This Berlin threesome is a kind of scaled-down brass band. The rough, energetic ensemble sound shows influences from free jazz and funk. The mixture is stirred and shaken, using the tried and tested New Orleans method. At the moment they’re really on a roll. This spring the Insomnia Brass Band was awarded the Deutschen Jazzpreis 2023: Band des Jahres! Drummer Christian Marien is later also featured in the ZJFT programme with his own quartet at the Allesboerderij near Garnwerd.

Singer Una Bergin (saxophonist/bandleader Sean Bergin’s daughter) has assembled a special edition of her band Snowapple for the ZJFT. Nearly all these musicians were members of Sean Bergin’s MOB (My Own Band), which often caused musical havoc at the ZJFT with its catchy South African tunes. Snowapple takes you along into a playful, sometimes absurd world, where humour is always nearby. The outfit, with three vocalists, will present its new album, Wrong Feet, at the Amsterdam Bimhuis in late September. The Huizinga barn will provide a sneak preview.

The Skypainters was founded at the Groningen PCC by composer and guitarist Kirill Dumchenko in 2017. The style of the music may be described as a fusion of modern jazz and romantic classical music. Kirill himself calls it ‘impressionist jazz’. The Skypainters prefer an open sound, light-footed and flexible. Sometimes the music is reinforced by operatic singing, very much like Ennio Morricone’s film music.

photo: Julia Dumchenko

he Zummerbühne Quartet is an instant formation in the truest sense of the word. The idea for this concert came up during the first conversations with Zummerbühne. And we have found the ideal location for the discovery of these four musicians: the church of Obergum. Maripepa Contreras is one of the best jazz oboists in the world, Suzan Venemanenchanted by her soulful and energetic playing, Sergej Bolotny can express his virtuosity in impro and Farid Sheek completes the exceptional sound palette of this quartet with his classical Iranian Daf Drum. After the opening concert with the North Pole Orchestra at Maarhuizen, the musicians race to Obergum to play immediately upon arrival: world-class instant impro.

photo: Petra Beckers

In 2009 Rudi Mahall was on the Niehove stage with pianist Aki Takase’s Aki & The Good Boys. Fourteen years later this hard-as-nails bass clarinetist shares the stage again with a pianist’s project. This time Uwe Oberg concerns himself with the music of Steve Lacy. As a jazz improviser, Uwe Oberg can be regularly seen with the likes of Gebhard Ullmann, Silke Eberhard, Joe Fonda and Gerry Hemingway. For the Lacy Pool project, the works of Steve Lacy are centre stage. The American from Paris is best known for his interpretations of Thelonious Monk’s music, but he has written a great many original compositions, too. His extensive oeuvre consists of no less than 130 albums. That’s enough to choose from, for the Lacy Pool.

Guitarist Marzio Scholten is a bird of many feathers. His recent digital album Ruis features both singer-songwriter Spinvis and author Nico Dijkshoorn. The description ‘guitar music’ gets closest to his imaginary film scores. Paris Texas, Twin Peaks, that’s the kind of atmosphere Ruis summons forth. In addition to his solo work, Marzio Scholten is a member of the indie rock band Opera Alaska, which he co-leads with Marien Dorleijn (Moss). In Sauwerd, Marzio Scholten’s musical landscapes are formed in association with his fellow-guitarist Sam van Hoogstraten.

Bassist and bandleader Esat Ekincioglu plays his trumps with Turkish Pumpkin with a passionate duo of wind players. Koen Boeinga and Giuseppe Doronzo can rouse each other to intense climaxes. The pumpkin soup consists of a free groove from the Afro-Anatolian continent, while the band may improvise on wedding and funeral music from the near East. Both bassist Esat and saxophonist Giuseppe were trained at the PCC Groningen. Together they form the backbone of the successful Mediterranean AVA Trio. In Turkish Pumpkin we can hear a new generation of Dutch improvisers.

Bert Kleijn is a name from the heyday of the Groningen free funk scene. He was featured in Gerard Ammerlaan’s Artisn’t and the Johan Huizing Quartet in the 1980s. He’s now involved as a percussionist in the Groningen trio Timber3 which owes a great deal to the music of Bill Frisell and Julian Lage. The Timber3 men have invited tenor saxophonist Hans Wijnbergen for a Sonny Rollins effect. We’ll be able to hear if the saxophonist still upholds his old love for tough tenors. After all, in his early days, the studio boss from Roderwolde and initiator of Draslanden Jazz, used to be known as Hans ‘Wild Saxman’ Wijnbergen.

Reedist Steven Kamperman had a residence at the Paris Theo van Doesburghuis for a number of months in this past winter. The Utrecht musician took inspiration from the exceptional architecture, geometrical forms and primary colours, to write the suite Maison Moderne. Clarinettist Kamperman has been a ZJFT regular over the years. He performed in a trio with violist Oene van Geel and the French tuba player Michel Godard. And with singer Sanem Kalfa and violist/guitarist George Dimitriu in the Horizon Trio. During this edition, new work in special arrangements by Kamperman and Van Geel will also be performed by the large Zummerbühne orchestra in Maarhuizen.

Violist and guitarist George Dumitriu from Bucharest has left his traces in Groningen. His combination of strings and live electronics is much appreciated in ensembles led by Alex Simu, Kaja Draksler and Eve Risser. His duo with vocalist Sanem Kalfa celebrates its 15th anniversary this summer, and also has its roots in the city of Groningen. Earlier this year, George Dumitriu presented his latest solo project at the Amsterdam Bimhuis: Monk on Viola, in which he takes Thelonious Monk’s music apart and puts it back together as an improviser. It’s an exciting exercise which you want to witness up close in Fransum.

In 2010 the Swiss saxophonist Omri Ziegele visited the ZJFT in the company of pianist Irène Schweizer. For their Intakt CD Where’s Africa they were inspired by South-African music. They have planned a new Intakt album for the summer. The Zürich born and self-taught musician has a saxophone sound that is reminiscent of Ornette Coleman or Eric Dolphy. At the beginning of a short tour, Omri Ziegele will come to Garnwerd for a unique concert in the Netherlands, with Han Bennink on drums and Christian Weber on double bass. The Tomorrow Trio can bring things to the boiling point, but has also mastered the art of letting off steam.

The British pianist Veryan Weston used to be a ZJFT regular. His performances with vocal artist Phil Minton, and his bands with Luc Ex (Roof, 4Walls) are legendary. But this was all long ago. High time to witness Veryan Weston’s current duo with Trevor Watts at work. The 84 year old saxophonist Trevor Watts was one of the earliest active members of the English improv scene with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (John Stevens) and the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra (Barry Guy). In the late 1960s he started his own band Amalgam. Later he delved into African music with his Moiré Music. The Trevor Watts/Veryan Weston duo has been going for 20 years now. Their musical dialogues may be witnessed at the Feerwerd church.

The Rotterdam Hydra Ensemble is the brainchild of Gonçalo Almeida. The Portuguese bassist is hardly a stranger to the ZJFT. He gave wonderful concerts with The Selva, Rodrigo Amado’s The Attic, LAMA Trio and Spinifex. Collective improvisations, minimal and ambient are the basis of the Hydra Ensemble’s music. The musical backgrounds in this string ensemble range from hardcore punk jazz and contemporary classical music to industrial. Electronics specialist Rutger Zuydervelt, for instance, can boast of an impressive underground career under the stage name Machinefabriek. Don’t expect any happy sing-along tunes in Oldehove this year.

For jazz cyclists with a good memory, tenor saxophonist Thomas Borgmann should be a familiar name. He played a duo concert with the New York avant-garde pianist Borah Bergman in 1999, and in 2011 his Berlin power trio Boombox was a guest in Oostum (where they arrived too late, while the church had already filled up; see photo). In Ruf der Heimat, Borgmann is still firmly at the helm. In the past he had the late whirlwind Peter Brötzmann at his side, but nowadays the nimble trombonist Christof Thewes takes up this position. For the past three decades this fiery quartet has shied away from nothing.

The melodic approach in saxophonist Frans Vermeerssen’s new trio is reminiscent of All Ears, his successful quintet which operated in the late 1980s with New York trumpeter Herb Robertson and the recently deceased guitarist Piet Hoeksma. After this, Vermeerssen had a long and fruitful partnership with pianist Michiel Braam and he took Willem Breuker’s place for a final series of concerts of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. These days, the saxophonist is on the road without a chordal instrument. It offers him the freedom to emulate his love for great tenor players (Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk). This spring, the new Vermeerssen Trio released a CD: The Trail. ‘He takes us on a journey and tells us all kinds of stories along the way.’ (Herman te Loo, Jazzflits)

The Nijmegen saxophonist and bandleader Bo van de Graaf comes up with new ideas all the time, but his regular orchestra I Compani has been a mainstay since 1985. He has done everything, from instrumental versions of songs from the Dutch TV series Ja Zuster Nee Zuster to spoken word with Dutch poet Simon Vinkenoog or Gato Barbieri’s film score for Last Tango in Paris. He will now present Het Artis Orkest (named after the Amsterdam zoo), offering a combination of poetry and animal stories, recited by vocalist Monique De Adelhart Toorop, accompanied by four musicians playing compositions by pianist Guus Janssen and Bo van de Graaf. Their pieces bear names like Muizenblues (Mice Blues) and Pigs in Love. And of course Misha Mengelberg’s De Sprong o Romantiek der Hazen (Romantic Jump of Hares) is on the repertoire, too.

Clarimba was founded in 2021 by bass clarinettist Femke van den Bergh and percussionist Samuel Gonzalez. They perform new works by young composers. In addition to marimba, they also use percussion and tape. The interaction with the audience is very important for Clarimba. They performed at the Festival UbbHill as part of the programme of Moderne Muziek Nijmegen, at Roeg Klassiek, and they undertook the concert tours Pump up the Volume and Flying Dutchmen in the province of Groningen.

THE SURPRISE ACT OF ZJFT 2023 WILL BE: GUY SALAMON GROUP
The Israeli Guy Salamon from Amsterdam has put together a spectacular group especially for the ZJFT, consisting of a new crop of young jazz musicians. The percussionist learned to clap the whip at jazz schools in Tel Aviv and New York. His inventive compositions show a colorful range of influences. From Kurt Weil via klezmer to South American music and back via jazz. Weblog Jazzenzo is about his recent CD Creatures! creatures! to the following conclusion: “a listening party: free and extremely lively sounding music that makes you happy! “.

This is the first band Berlin drummer Christian Marien presents as a leader. He was looking for musicians with a great heart as well as great ears. And he has managed to bring people together who are able to discover and shape Marien’s compositions anew every single time. Sometimes the band sounds like Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time with Jasper Stadhouders in the role of James Blood Ulmer. And when Tobias Delius is in charge, the band’s timing sounds like Delius’s Quartet. In this company, bassist Antonio Borghini is an independent force. And the drummer? He has free rein – after all, it’s his band.

Up in Groningen we first got acquainted with trumpeter Dave Douglas in an overwhelming set by John Zorn’s Masada at the 1996 Jazzmarathon. Dave Douglas was 33 at the time. By now he has recorded some sixty albums as a leader. An outstanding one among them, is Mountain Passages from 2005, which he released on his own Greenleaf label (in Europe on the Koch label). The main ingredients for this music are influences from jazz, classical music and Eastern European folk music. The American trumpeter reassembled the ideal band from back then. A well-known figure in the stellar line-up is clarinettist Michael Moore from Amsterdam. The Canadian drummer Dylan van der Schyff, incidentally, was featured at the ZJFT before. The live recording with saxophonist Tobias Delius and pianist Cor Fuhler from 2001 is available as a Hi-Res download.

Saxophonist Iman Spaargaren has been working with a regular rhythm section of two Amsterdam based Argentineans, guitarist Guillermo Celano and drummer Marcos Baggiani, for ten years. First as the Undercurrent Trio and now in Spaargaren’s new Undercurrent Orchestra. The music for this large line-up could easily be used as a film score. He played in the band Thelonious4 with guitarist Celano and with guitarist Mark Tuinstra in the drumless trio Pelican Three. His Spaargaren Quintet featured Jasper le Clercq, Paul Pallesen and Yonga Sun. He’s a busybody, our Iman. He should be world famous in the Netherlands by now.

Garnwerd will once again feature a ZJFT tent as a central meeting point, with scrumptious food stalls. The tent also functions as a music stage during the daytime and for the final party in the evening. This year, it features Naked Ears, the jazz funk band of bassist Jasper de Beer, best known for his work with the Amsterdam Klezmer band. Co-led by guitarist/producer Gil Lopez, this eight piece outfit presents an exciting mix of funk grooves, P-funk, ska and Afro beat. The American singer/trombonist Joseph Bowie (Defunkt) will be featured as a special guest.

And extra: DJ Swoolish in the tent.