October Meeting Days 07. – 09.10.2016 Live At The Bimhuis komplett !

IMPROVISED MUSIC

On 7, 8 and 9 October 2016, the Amsterdam Bimhuis and Dutch Performing Arts will present October Meeting: a three day long get-together of some twenty-two of the leading young improvisors of the Dutch scene and those of surrounding countries. The Bimhuis will be an incubator where these unweathered musicians will dream up and develop a panoply of original pieces, some rehearsed in advance, others produced on the spot, with line ups ranging from large ensembles to duos or trios inspired by the spur and the joy of the moment.

Bimhuis has a tradition of providing a platform for possibilities and its October Meeting serves as an engaging showcase for the lively international jazz and impro scene in the Netherlands, and will be an optimal occasion for musicians, concert presenters, promoters and other professionals in the field of adventurous music to connect.

 

 

PROGRAM FR OCT 7(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
Set 1:
‘Bass clarinets, guitar & drums’ – Ziv Taubenfeld (bass clarinet), Joris Roelofs (bass clarinet), Joachim Badenhorst (bass clarinet), Onno Govaert (drums), Reinier Baas (guitar)
Rasmussen/Rave/Santos Silva/Draksler Quartet – Mette Rasmussen (sax), Ada Rave (sax), Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Kaja Draksler (piano)
‘Musho’ – Sofia Jernberg (vocals), Alexander Hawkins (piano)
‘Cello’ – Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Ziv Taubenfeld (bass clarinet), Olie Brice (bass)
Quartet: Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Joachim Badenhorst (sax), Olie Brice (bass), Christian Lillinger (drums)Intermission at bar Set 2:
‘Drums’ – Gerri Jäger (drums), Onno Govaert (drums), Christian Lillinger (drums)
Duo: Reinier Baas (guitar), Alexander Hawkins (piano)
Duo: Morris Kliphuis (French horn), Raphael Vanoli (guitar)
Sextet: Sofia Jernberg (vocals), Harald Austbø (cello), Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Ziv Taubenfeld (bass clarinet), Oscar Jan Hoogland (piano), Petter Eldh (bass) – Composition: Ada Rave
‘Strings/drums/reeds’ – Mette Rasmussen (sax), Ada Rave (sax), Yedo Gibson (reeds), Harald Austbø (cello), John Dikeman (sax), Jasper Stadhouders (guitar), Petter Eldh (bass), Olie Brice (bass), Christian Lillinger (drums), Onno Govaert (drums)
‘Practical Music’ – Jasper Stadhouders (guitar), Oscar Jan Hoogland (piano), Christian Lillinger (drums)Session at bar stage:
‘O.J.’s Playhouse’
Jam session curated by Oscar Jan Hoogland, Alexander Hawkins, Olie Brice

BIOS OF THE 22 PARTICIPANTS, BY PETER MARGASAK:
1
Harald Austbø
The Dutch cellist Harald Austbø was pulled into the world of creative music after hearing the work of the great Ernst Reijseger, but music is only part of his output. Not only did he earn a bachelor’s degree in jazz cello from the Conservatory of Amsterdam, but he also has a bachelor’s degree in acting from the Antwerp Theater School, and he regularly combines these disciplines in various theatrical productions. Still, he’s a devoted improviser, whether giving solo concerts using looping and human beatboxing or playing cello in the Chris Corstens Kwartet. He’s known best as a key member of the Amsterdam improvising quartet the Ambush Party.2
Reinier Baas
Dutch guitarist Reinier Baas, who studied both at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and the Manhattan School of Music in New York—where his teachers included Dave Liebman and Phil Markowitz—is one of the more beguiling bandleaders in Amsterdam today, bringing a sly sense of humor to his appealingly accessible brand of post-bop. Album titles like More Socially Relevant Jazz Music and Smooth Jazz Apocalypse indicate his refusal to take himself too seriously, but ultimately he’s serious about the music he makes. As a sideman he’s worked with Han Bennink, Chris Speed, Gregory Porter, Hans Teeuwen and Benjamin Herman, among others, and his own nimble quartet brings a thoroughly modern sensibility to small group jazz, with a lyric quality that could appeal to Radiohead fans, but most definitely not smooth jazz ones.3
Joachim Badenhorst
Belgian reedist Joachim Badenhorst has established himself as one of the most eclectic improvisers in Europe, a musician who pays little heed to the stylistic constraints of genre. He studied at the Royal Conservatory at the Hague, and during his time there his network dramatically expanded. His group of collaborators grew even more during a three-year stay in New York between 2008-2011. He is now involved with a wide variety of disparate projects, whether it’s playing in the first-ever working band led by the legendary drummer Han Bennink, playing within the style-crushing pop-jazz-experimental ensemble the Carate Urio Orchestra, or the delicate chamber trio Baloni. He also has a committed solo practice for bass clarinet, clarinet, and tenor saxophone.4
Olie Brice
Like fellow Brit Alexander Hawkins who’s participating in the October Meeting, bassist Olie Brice eschewed formal education in favor of old-fashioned on the bandstand training, gaining knowledge and experience as he goes. He has certainly proven that path to be effective, positioning himself as one of his homeland’s most versatile and in-demand players. In addition to his superb quintet, he’s involved with many different superb bands including a fantastic trio with saxophonist Tobias Delius and drummer Mark Sanders, duos with Achim Kaufmann and saxophonists Rachel Munson and Tom Challenger. He also works with a variety of disparate saxophonists including fellow Brit Paul Dunmall, Polish free jazz titan Mikolaj Trzaska, and New York’s Ingrid Laubrock.5
John Dikeman
American saxophonist John Dikeman has taken a wild-and-wooly path to Amsterdam, where he moved in 2007. He spent time at Bennington College in Vermont, where he took classes taught by percussionist Milford Graves and studied privately with reedist Joe Maneri, and he later resided in New York and Philadelphia. In 2004 he moved to Cairo, Egypt where he taught and played in the band of Egyptian pop star Mohammed Mounir. Since arriving in Amsterdam he’s established himself as one of the city’s most explosive improvisers, a musician of unrelenting energy and focused intensity, embracing the free jazz of the 60s with the energy of punk. He leads the trio Cactus Truck with drummer Onno Govaerts and guitarist/bassist Jasper Stadhouders, plays in Universal Indians—including a recent collaboration with American free jazz veteran Joe McPhee—and he’s also worked regularly with William Parker and Hamid Drake.6
Kaja Draksler
Pianist and composer Kaja Draksler was born in Kranj, Slovenia and she studied jazz at Ljubljana’s High School for Music, but most of her adult years have been spent in the Netherlands. She earned her bachelor’s in jazz piano at the Prince Claus Conservatory in Groningen in 2009, and then she headed to the US to study privately with both Vijay Iyer and Jason Moran. She completed her master in classical composition at the Conservatory of Amsterdam in 2013 and since then she’s become an increasingly vital part of the local and international scene. She’s developed a stunning solo practice that melds her fluency in both contemporary music and improvisation. She’s involved in numerous small group projects, including Feecho, a duo with percussionist Onno Govaert, and another duo with Portuguese trumpeter Susanna Santos Silva, but more recently she’s formed an octet that combines sophisticated art-songs with bare-boned improvisation.7
Petter Eldh
Petter Eldh is one of the most active figures of the current generation at work in Berlin, although he plays in so many different configurations he’s never in one place very long. He was born and grew up in Gothenberg, Sweden where a copy of an early Dr. Dre album got him interested in music, but it was a Charlie Parker record that pulled him into jazz a few years later. He earned a master’s degree at (the) Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen in 2009, which is when (after which?) he relocated to Berlin. He’s an invaluable anchor in many different projects, but in recent years he’s worked frequently with the Norwegian reedist Marius Neset, Norwegian drummer Gard Nilssen, and he’s a member of the hard-charging quartet Amok Amor with American trumpeter Peter Evans and Germans Christian Lillinger (drums) and Wanja Slavin (saxophone).8
Yedo Gibson
Reedist Yedo Gibson hails from the huge, bustling metropolis of São Paulo, Brazil, but it wasn’t until he migrated to Europe in 2005 that he found his footing musically. After some time in London he’s become yet another important figure in Amsterdam’s cosmopolitan improvising music scene. He initiated the Royal Improvisers Orchestra—a crucial large group that served as a fulcrum for many of the city’s most exciting talent—and he’s been involved with a growing, disparate number of projects since then: EKE with pianist Oscar Jan Hoogland and drummer Gerri Jäger, the jagged chamber trio Trolleybus with pianist Nora Mulder and bassist Renato Ferreira, and the storming jazz-rock combo Naked Wolf with Luc Ex, trumpeter Felicity Provan, and others.9
Onno Govaert
Percussionist Onno Govaert hails from Tilburg, but has installed himself as a crucial member of the Amsterdam improvised music community since studying jazz drumming at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, from which he graduated in 2009. He’s a key member of numerous bands including Cactus Truck, Feecho (with pianist Kaja Draksler), Twenty-One 4tet, and a trio with Wilbert de Joode and Jasper Stadhouders, in addition to countless ad hoc improvisational situations with the likes of Ab Baars, Ken Vandermark, Joe McPhee, and Terri Ex. He routinely demonstrates phenomenal listening ability, taking in what those around him produce and responding with keen imagination that both propels and expands whatever context he’s working in.10
Alexander Hawkins
Pianist Alexander Hawkins is one of the most exciting and versatile young figures on the British jazz scene, a musician who consistently reconciles his love for classic jazz literature with outward bound improvisational endeavors—he’s even worked with the adventurous instrumental band Heliocentrics in their collaboration with Ethio-jazz giant Mulatu Astatke. His limber trio with Tom Skinner and Neil Charles reveals his adoration for Duke Ellington and Herbie Nichols while the Convergence Quartet with American cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum investigates more abstract modes of communication. Hawkins is also a member of the working band of the great South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo and he recently released a stunning album of free improvisation with the legendary saxophonist Evan Parker.11
Oscar Jan Hoogland
Keyboardist Oscar Jan Hoogland is emblematic of the current generation of Dutch improvisers, a hard-knuckled musician who attacks every context with curiosity, passion, and a wry skepticism. He’s an important bridge to the past through his Amsterdam Real Book project, which interprets classic tunes by the greatest jazz figures of the city from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Although he has a few projects built around compositions, including a trio with cellist Harald Austbø and drummer Marcos Baggiani, he’s best known for collective endeavors where the music develops spontaneously, including the powerful Ambush Party, which features the above trio with the addition of saxophonist Natalio Sued, and the fiery trio EKE with reedist Yedo Gibson and drummer Gerri Jäger.12
Gerri Jäger
Austrian-born drummer Gerri Jäger was inspired to make music by the aggressive rock bands he grew up hearing, but by his teenage years his tastes expanded to include a deep passion for improvisation. He began formal jazz studies at the Conservatory of Innsbruck—the town where he grew up—and completed his degree at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. He has remained in the city ever since, playing within an ever expanding constellation of projects in a wide variety of contexts, mixing the high-energy rock influences of his youth with fearless abstraction. He plays knotty, high-velocity free improvisation in the trio EKE with electric clavichord player Oscar Jan Hoogland and reedist Yedo Gibson, the elastic and sometimes fractured compositions of Natalio Sued in Opositor, and extended sound exploration in Franz Hautzinger’s Regenorchester, to name just a few of his projects.13
Sofia Jernberg
Sweden’s Sofia Jernberg ranks as one of the most versatile, original, and bold singers of the current generation, an improviser who’s equally fluent navigating contemporary composition—applying peerless technique to a wide variety of disciplines. Her aesthetic is rooted in jazz and free improvisation, co-founding the dynamic Swedish ensemble Paavo, bringing life to the pop sketches of cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm in the quintet Seval, and singing within the raucous blare of Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra. But in recent years she’s proven just as skilled and insightful in contemporary music, performing the music of Salvatore Sciarrino, Arnold Schönberg, and the exciting new Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir.14
Morris Kliphuis
Dutch horn player Morris Kliphuis has spent much of young career pushing against the boundaries of what his instrument can do beyond its familiar role in classical music. He spent a year following the classical path in his studies at the Hague, but he soon transferred to the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where he switched his focus to jazz; he later spent a semester in New York studying with the American jazz horn player John Clark. He plays in a variety of ensembles that chart new possibilities for the horn, whether the jazz-rock explorations of the trio Kapok, which won the Dutch Jazz Competition in 2012, or the winding, high-energy compositions of the septet Windkracht 7. Kliphuis also plays in the New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra and genre-stretching Berlin new music ensemble Stargaze.15
Christian Lillinger
From an early age it was clear that drummer Christian Lillinger would be a force to reckon with. When he was just 16 he enrolled in the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music thanks to the support of his mentor, legendary drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer, and from that point forward he’s made an impact. He moved to Berlin in 2003 and soon became a first-call percussionist, working behind the likes of saxophonist Henrik Walsdorff, trombonist Gerhard Gschlobl, pianist Marc Schmolling and veteran reedist Rolf Kühn. But with the formation of the scrappy collective trio Hyperactive Kid and his group Grund he became a serious bandleader in his own right. He’s a top-flight drummer and composer, with a sharp ear that enables him to European players (Tobias Delius, Achim Kaufmann, Pierre Borel, Jonas Westergaard, Christopher Dell) to form one of the continent’s strongest working bands.

16
Mette Rasmussen
Alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen—a native of Arhus, Denmark though now based in Trondheim, Norway—is one of the fieriest free improvisers of her generation, a player of relentless energy and intensity. Although she has explored written material as a member of Trio Riot and Mats Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, her primary interest is free improvisation. She’s developed a fruitful relationship with the American drummer Chris Corsano, matching his texture-oriented playing with a biting tone that transforms the upper register cries of Albert Ayler into a concentrated scream of enormous power. But she also possesses a more nuanced side as heard on a recent collaboration with Alan Silva and Ståle Liavik Solberg, where her astringent alto playing reveals a stunning range of moods and attacks.

17
Ada Rave
Reedist Ada Rave was born and raised in Argentina, where she graduated from the Manuel de Falla Conservatory of Buenos Aires and began a long-term engagement with music education. She moved to Amsterdam in 2013 and she quickly became a prominent figure on the local improvised music scene, becoming a key member in numerous ensembles including the Felicity Provan Quintet, the Blue Lines Sextet, and the Kaja Draksler Octet. Last year her collective improvising trio New Rumors & Other Noises released its debut album The Moonlight Nightcall (Casco), where her serrated tone on tenor and alto saxophones powerfully slices through the elliptic, brittle formations produced by pianist Nicolas Chientaroli and bassist Raoul van der Weide.

18
Joris Roelofs
Reedist Joris Roelofs was born in Aix-en-Provence, France, but he grew up and continues to live in Amsterdam. By the time he earned his masters degree from the Conservatory of Amsterdam he was already a member of the esteemed Vienna Art Orchestra. In 2008 he relocated to New York where he forged ongoing partnerships with a wide variety of musicians, including the agile rhythm section on his elegant 2015 album Amateur Dentist (Pirouet)—bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ted Poor. He has also worked with the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christina Branco, Lionel Loueke, Lewis Nash, James Carter, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and the WDR Big Band, and last year pianist Brad Mehldau invited to him participate on an original sound track for the classic silent film Salvation Hunters by Josef Von Sternberg.

19
Susana Santos Silva
The versatile Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva grew up listening to jazz in her hometown of Porto, where she earned degrees in jazz at the College of Music and Performing Arts in Porto. She later earned a master in performance at Codarts in Rotterdam. Although her education was rooted in classical music and mainstream jazz—she’s a long-time member of the well-respected Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos—living abroad exposed her to a new world of music, which she quickly embraced and over the last decade or so her focus has switched toward improvisation. She’s a member of the collective Lama and she’s especially fond of duo configurations, including fruitful partnerships with Swedish bassist Torbjorn Zetterberg and Amsterdam pianist Kaja Draksler. She recently released the eponymous debut of a powerhouse collective with Zetterberg, pianist Sten Sandell, reedist Lotte Anker, and drummer Jon Fält called Life and Other Transient Storms.

20
Jasper Stadhouders
Dutch guitarist and electric bassist Jasper Stadhouders consistently brings the raw energy of punk rock to the Amsterdam improvising community, picking up on the accomplishments of the Ex and pushing them in new directions. He’s a key part of John Dikeman’s furiously hard-hitting trio Cactus Truck and he injects plenty of fury and muscle into the rigorous, prog-like compositions of the band Spinifex. He has an exciting generation-spanning trio with bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Onno Govaert as well as paint-pealing duos with drummers Dag Erik Nedal Andersen and Nicolas Field. More recently he’s become an indispensable part of Ken Vandermark’s Made to Break quartet, providing a crucial center to the combo’s slippery grooves.

21
Ziv Taubenfeld
Born and raised in Israel, Ziv Taubenfeld began his studies on clarinet at the age of 11 and within a year he’d enrolled at the Conservatory of Karmiel, in the small town where he grew up, with a focus on classical music. While there he added bass clarinet to his arsenal, and as his interest in improvised music grew, he switched to the lower instrument exclusively. He relocated to Amsterdam and studied under reedist Michael Moore at the Prince Claus Conservatory in Groningen. He plays in the raucous surf-influenced jazz combo Kuhn Fu and more recently he released the debut album of his trio Bones, which features two of his old Israeli cohorts playing his jagged themes with limber agility.

22
Raphael Vanoli
German-born guitarist Raphael Vanoli, who studied classical and jazz guitar at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, brings a decidedly physical approach to his instrument, often using it as a noise generator. Deploying a wide array of effects pedals and other electronic manipulations, he creates shifting soundscapes with visceral immediacy, including using his voice as well as his own breath to trigger certain ineffable sounds. In addition to his rigorous improvised solo practice, he’s also a devoted performer of contemporary music and he plays with drummer Gerri Jäger in both the extroverted post-rock duo Knalpot and the space-dub combo Stolpernova.