Friday 11 July
The name Wayne Shorter (1933 – 2023) was mentioned a lot on the first festival day. First of all at the Amazon where his former fellow musicians and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra performed known and unknown music that he composed. During his long career the American saxophonist and bandleader wrote a lot of music for small ensembles. His name is attached to dozens of pieces that became standards like ‘JuJu’, ‘Speak No Evil’, ‘Infant Eyes’ and ‘Adam’s Apple’. The programme ‘Symphonic Music of Wayne Shorter’ focused on his previously unheard works for large orchestra and some older pieces arranged for orchestra.
Even when Shorter composed for small ensembles, he knew exactly what he wanted. Meticulously, he worked out his scores, using a pencil. We can therefore assume that the symphonic music played by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra sounded as the composer intended. The orchestra played ‘Bad Forbidden Planet’, ‘Flagships’ and ‘Orbits’ flawlessly. The fact that conductor and arranger Clark Rundell has been working with Shorter for many years will probably have helped. However, it can be questioned whether these compositions will stand the test of time as orchestral works. Shorter used a sound idiom similar to that of classical American composers like Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin and Florence Price. Lush harp sounds and the use of strings gave the music a smooth nature, but real surprises or guiding thoughts were lacking. Ironically, the music captivated most when the orchestra gave space to soloists Tineke Postma (soprano sax), Dayna Stephens (tenor sax), Danilo Pérez (piano) and rhythm giants John Patitucci (bass) and Terri Lyne Carrington (drums).
Glimpses of Herbie Hancock
At the same Amazon, where it had warmed up after a frosty start (the air conditioners were blowing heavily), veteran Herbie Hancock (1940) made his appearance. It must have been his famous name, plus the idea that each concert might be his last, that an hour before the start many seats were already occupied. Even after that, visitors kept pouring in in such huge amounts that the aisles got eerily crowded on the sides as well as in the middle. As Hancock and his men entered, the lucky few who had secured seats had to look at the video screens to catch some glimpses of Hancock, fashionably dressed in many shades of red. The master, who gave the impression that he loved to be on stage, played a selection of his rich repertoire and put a new spin on his old work. The band played extremely tight and, as ever, the leader alternated his acoustic grand piano with keyboard sounds once labelled futuristic. Terence Blanchard had so much echo on his trumpet that at times he sounded like a resurrected Miles Davis.
The highlight was an arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ which started small but grew into an admirable musical structure. That Hancock is still enjoying it after almost seven decades of performing proved after putting on his portable keytar. He started the funk classic ‘Rockit’ and danced across the stage as if he had yet to conquer the world.
Paul Acket Award
Half a century younger than Hancock is the winner of the award named after festival founder Paul Acket, Sun-Mi Hong. The quintet of the South Korean-born Amsterdam-based drummer played confidently and with guts. Tenor saxophonist Nicolò Ricci and trumpet player Alistair Payne complemented each other beautifully, both in quiet ballads with a double bass bowed by Alessandro Fongaro and in solid pieces in which pianist Chaerin Im and the bandleader pulled out all the stops. Unfortunately, the quality of their work did not show up sufficiently in the Madeira, which was once intended for intimate concerts and a concentrated audience. The same happened to saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who put on an impressive and varied performance with her quartet. The audience walked in and out of the Madeira happily chattering, without the courtesy to wait to leave until a song was over. Oddly enough the long rows of chairs had no middle aisle, causing people to constantly shuffle past in front or behind others. The fact that right next to the Madeira is the Birdland VIP lounge did not help either.
Crowd control & catchy rhythms
Meanwhile, attempts at crowd control were being made. Around 9.30 PM, a long queue of waiting people stood in front of the closed doors of the Maas-hall. Ezra Collective is so popular that even this giant venue was no longer sufficient. Thanks to a goat alley on the first floor, we managed to get in. The five London guys provided delightful moments of uncomplicated joy. The collective got the Maas-hal visitors including those on the balconies up to the ridge of the complex dancing en masse. With their modest instrumentation (percussion, bass, keyboard and horns), they laid down catchy rhythms which turned out to be more sophisticated than you would think on first hearing.
Avishai Cohen had almost given up making music, he told his audience at the Hudson. The events of 7 October 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza had affected him so much that he had been unable to create new compositions for a while. The album Ashes to Gold, from which his quartet played music, was his way of coming to terms with those horrors. Cohen put on a beautiful set, alternating his trumpet with a flute that gave his music a fragile and intimate nature.
Pure New Orleans swing
Branford Marsalis’ quartet kicked off like a rocket. Something was wrong with the sound, causing the volume to be lower than usual at the Hudson. The experienced musicians didn’t care; they would have been able to impress the audience even if the power went out completely. They gave Keith Jarrett’s ‘Long As You Know You’re Living Yours’ a compelling funky beat. The climax that Marsalis patiently worked towards was surpassed by a powerful, deeply blues-drenched piano solo by Joey Calderazzo that followed. Although familiar with the festival phenomenon, the Branford Marsalis Quartet had the guts to perform two hushed ballads, forcing silence in the hall. As the last act on the first day, the four musicians returned for an encore in the form of pure New Orleans swing.
Saturday 12 July
Saturday started subtly with the delicate combination of two equivalent instruments: double bass and grand piano. That Tony Overwater and Atzko Kohashi mention the music of John Coltrane as their source of inspiration might perhaps lead to confusion. Their first joint album Crescent was a tribute to the blues feel Coltrane put into playing ballads. On subsequent albums, A Drum Thing and Porgy too, Overwater and Kohashi searched for the soul of the music. In the Yenisei Hall, where the ceiling is so low that Overwater’s instrument could only just stand upright, the duo played impressionistic music in which the heart of the blues was constantly beating. ‘I have never played at North Sea Jazz in such a quiet hall,’ Overwater complimented the attentively listening audience. The sensitive performance of ‘Lonnie’s Lament’ therefore came out very well.
Calypso grooves
Fifteen minutes later, two Dutch jazz pioneers entered the stage. Hans Dulfer and Han Bennink each had their own different long careers: Dulfer embraced electronic experimentation and became unprecedentedly popular in Japan with the heavy ‘Big Boy’ album. Bennink felt more at home in the avant-garde improv scene. Their shared passion for the music of Sonny Rollins remained solid all these years. Dulfer described the recently recovered Rollins performance in which Bennink played the drums in Arnhem in 1967 as ‘a musical eruption that had never happened before and probably never will again.’ So it surprised no one that Rollins’ influence dominated the two veterans’ gig. Dulfer and Bennink met in a highly entertaining performance. Bennink laid down infectious Calypso grooves on which Dulfer could go completely wild. Dulfer kept things exciting by inserting Ornette Coleman-like passages here and there. Bennink threatened to quit prematurely because of ‘a broken rib’. When Dulfer started a new piece on his own, Bennink banged on the cymbals with his walking stick and then decided to sit down again anyway. Dulfer and Bennink showed that being a musician is not a profession, but an attitude to life.
Loek van den Berg’s quintet also performed at the Yenisei. In a short time, this saxophonist made a name for himself with his two well received albums Wayfarer and Seafarer. That young musicians are embracing and continuing the jazz tradition with so much passion is hopeful. This quintet’s layered music has enough power, besides a dreamy quality, to keep it captivating. The musicians quietly built up their bandleader’s strong compositions and managed to carry the audience along. The group operated as a collective: solos were not meant to impress or trump the other, but to help each other. Although the harmonic beauty prevailed, the sometimes abrasive sounds proved that their music is rooted in reality, which is simply not always rosy.
Netherlands Chamber Choir
Kika Sprangers, who received the composition commission in November last year, retreated to ‘the composer’s house’ in Bergen, the former home of Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, for this purpose. The human voice plays an important role in Sprangers’ work and to challenge herself, she chose to combine the Netherlands Chamber Choir with a contemporary jazz ensemble. Last Tuesday, she heard the results of what she had come up with for the first time. On Thursday 10 July, ‘The Way Wild Rivers Flow’ premiered at Rotterdam LantarenVenster theater; on Saturday 12 July, Sprangers, her chosen jazz musicians and the choir performed this work at the Madeira. Fortunately, almost everyone present stayed in the hall and it was possible to fully experience the music. From the moment the choir started singing, sometimes wordlessly, sometimes with lyrics, you knew something special was happening. The polyphonic songs had a sacred nature that remained, even in heightened form, when intersected by Reinier Baas’s sharp guitar sounds, Tijs Klaassen’s driving bass, Jonas Burgwinkel’s solid drums, Alistar Payne’s divergent trumpet parts and the conducting composer’s saxophone lines. One song was about Nina Simone, a girl in a red dress, dancing on her own on a platform, got her own musical tribute. The most impressive part was ‘Outcry’. Sprangers’ reaction to the current state of the world received a warm applause from the visibly moved audience.
North Sea Jazz is a festival of extremes. The Maas stage welcomed UK singer Celeste after several years of absence. Celeste made a huge impression with the album Not Your Muse (2021). After that, she disappeared from the scene for some time before recently turning up as a victim of a music industry VIP. Now that she was back in the spotlight, she dared to show her vulnerability. This was all the more true when she started singing and dropped her protective shield. Her voice, which combined the sound of Amy Winehouse’s with the power of Adele’s, testified in all its rawness to a tormented existence.
Sunday 13 July
On the last festival day, at a quarter past three, the uplifting soul music of Thee Sacred Souls banged through the speakers at the Nile. The three American musicians, assisted by a line of horns and a backing choir, got the people in the venue dancing from the very first notes. A year ago, the members of this group of the Daptones stable played in the Congo. Since they brought down the tent then, they now got a spot on the much larger Nile stage. The mix of soul, gospel and doo-wop did well on this hot summer day. Vocalist Josh Lane enthusiastically dove into the audience. His energetic performance did come at the expense of his vocal purity at a few moments, though.
Ad-hoc choir
Jacob Collier was so full of adrenaline after three performances that he kept running back and forth between the grand piano and the drums. This third day, the ‘artist in residence’ worked with the Metropole Orchestra with whom he recorded two albums. In 2016, Collier made his modest debut in one of the small venues where, surrounded by keyboards and computers, he accompanied himself polyphonically. He has since grown into an experienced entertainer who transforms crowded venues into occasional choirs. With the Metropole Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley, he presented a varied show that, after a nervous start, became more balanced. Collier’s versatility became evident when he called his mother on stage. Together with the orchestra, they performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Concerto for two violins in D minor’. Mother and violinist Suzie Collier played the first part, Jacob sang the second. After covers of the Police (‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’) and Michael Jackson (‘Human Nature’), Collier moved on to his famous community singing practice, using hand gestures to indicate pitches and volumes for the Maas ad-hoc choir.
Loud and clear
For a moment, it seemed as if a programme of civilised chamber music had started in the Hudson. Tigran Hamasyan may be an accomplished and experienced practitioner of classical music, he had no intention of being limited by any genre classification. The opening piece had barely begun when the other instrumentalists – to the enthusiasm of the audience – made themselves heard loud and clear. The pianist worked from the premise: ‘never explain what you are doing.’ Only at the end of his performance did he bother to introduce his fellow musicians. Hamasyan used the microphone to sing wordless Armenian songs. Moments of sublime beauty and of heavyweight-category fist fighting performed in complicated times alternated each other. Halfway through, the pianist switched instruments with Yessaï Karapetian, who until then had played an electronic keyboard. In the centre of the stage, Marc Karapetian and drummer Nate Wooden pounded away unapproachably at the appointed moments. Mark Karapetian made his bass guitar roar like Dan Berglund in the band E.S.T. once did.
Tight unit
Nubya Garcia demonstrated a laid-back view of making music during her performance: ‘If you want to walk away: go ahead, if you come in: welcome, if you want to say something about my nice shoes: okay, if you want to listen: fine too.’ The London-based saxophonist and bandleader played a delicious mix of dub, reggae, jazz and R&B at the Darling. Her band played as a tight unit, allowing Garcia’s deep saxophone sounds to shine. Besides her regular accompanists, she had brought a string quartet that laid down a warm arranged bath for her rich improvisations.
Die-hard festival-goers began to show signs of fatigue around 10 PM. A few were already a little shaky on their feet. Then American saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin’s set had yet to begin. After her soundcheck, she told those who were present: ‘Why should we wait? Let’s just start!’ Fifteen minutes later, the hall now completely filled, she was introduced with the words: ‘Lakecia Benjamin has grown. She no longer operates from pain, but from strength.’ The bandleader proved this by giving everything she had in the opening number.
Peace, freedom, equality, faith, hope and love
Two years earlier, Lakecia impressed in the same hall with her John Coltrane-inspired music. Now she did not save her energy until the end, but surprised after ten minutes with a version of ‘My Favorite Things’ played from her toes. As if in a relay race, pianist Oscar Perez took over from her in his inventively stacked improvisations. In between, Lakecia encouraged the audience to clap along enthusiastically. She spewed her message of peace, freedom, equality, faith, hope and love into the microphone. New were the sensual Latin rhythms with which the musicians enriched their repertoire and Lakecia’s well-written rap lyrics.
After a heartbreakingly beautiful duo performance (with Oscar Perez) of Billy Taylor’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free’, the bandleader, who had taken off her gold-coloured jacket because of the tropical temperatures, declared that she had been considering settling in Rotterdam. ‘Let’s make this a city of love together!’ Thus ended this 48th edition of North Sea Jazz with a positive vibe. Keep that feeling until next year.
Pictures: Ron Beenen
