Friday 7 July The halls in Ahoy may have gotten larger, the crowds have increased more than proportionally. North Sea Jazz is as popular as ever and that means you have to think even more carefully about who you would like to see and hear in order not to end up in front of closed […]
Blog
David Bowie’s rock & roll suicide
Monday is not the best moment for a night out, but July 3, was an exception to that rule. Not only was the Hammersmith Apollo theatre sold out, in many cinemas across the world large audiences were watching 50th Ziggy Stardust anniversary show too. Exactly half a century ago, David Bowie closed his world tour […]
Brad Mehldau: Portrait of the genius musician as a young man
Brad Mehldau has never been keen on giving interviews. From his low piano stool, deeply bent over the keys, he seems to shield himself from the outside world. After the publication of the first volume of Mehldau’s memoirs, his media shyness becomes more understandable. Instead of sprinkling crumbs of information, the pianist chooses to describe […]
‘Moments Contained’ at Rotterdam Central Station
Visual art works in public spaces can usually count on unvarnished comments in Rotterdam. These periods of habituation never last long, though. And after ten years or so, if you tried to remove the sculpture/mural/structure, you would get into trouble with the locals. Speaking examples of these grown loves are ‘Erasmus’ (the Laurenskerk initially opposed […]
Lunch in Hook of Holland
Inhabitants from Rotterdam have had to wait a long time for a good metro connection to ‘their’ beach. Now it is possible to board at Coolhaven station and pass the gates of the brand-new Hook of Holland Beach station thirty minutes later. Only a few metres then separate you from the summery sandy beach and […]
Chet Baker in good form at Dutch radio studio
When US producer Zev Feltman asked Frank Jochemsen of the Nederlands Jazz Archive if there were any interesting recordings of Chet Baker (1929 – 1988) on Dutch shelves, Jochemsen did not expect too much. Today 35 years ago the American jazz trumpeter died after falling from an Amsterdam hotel window. Poking around in the radio […]