jazz andrew claes & marc van den hoof get all jazzed up
Marc Van den Hoof’s
jazz picks
The Belgian Gipsy Swing 14 /1, 20.30, La Tentation (Djangofolllies)
“I still listen a lot to Django Reinhardt, but not to his followers. Recently, however, I met the trumpeter René De Smaele and I got interested again.” As a special guest, De Smaele’s wee swing band has invited Dorado Schmitt, a Gypsy who opted for the electric guitar.
Avishai Cohen Quartet 14 /1, 19.30, Flagey (Brussels Jazz Festival)
“The older I get, the more I admire trumpeters. The versatile Avishai Cohen took the Ornette Coleman tribute at Jazz Middelheim to a higher level. His set with the conservatory students took me by surprise. I’m a fan of his small ensembles.”
Nicola Andrioli 17/1, 20.00, Théâtre Marni (River Jazz Festival)
“This pianist has recorded a duo album with the saxophonist Steven Delannoye, but I know him above all from his work with Philip Catherine. He has a beautiful touch: playful and elegant – he sounds a bit Italian.” He will perform with the singer Barbara Wiernik, with whom he has just brought out an album.
Bert Joris & BJO 17/1, 20.15, Flagey (Brussels Jazz Festival)
Smooth Shake is the fourth album the Brussels Jazz Orchestra has recorded with the trumpeter and composer Bert Joris. “He has arranged some of his quartet’s pieces for a big band. I have a soft spot for the contribution of Bert Joris and the band leader Frank Vaganée, who let other soloists shine too.”
Tom Harrell TRIP 18/1, 20.30, Flagey (Brussels Jazz Festival)
“Kind of strange, this American trumpeter, who shared the stage with Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Konitz. But so strong, melodically and harmonically! I keep listening because he surprises me every time. This time he is coming with another new line-up, without a pianist. What’s more, he is as old as I am.”
16 b ruzz
Parker or The Complete Savoy Recordings (by Lester Young). Miles Davis was a model. He came across Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colours’ on the radio and did his own thing with it. So I first of all came into contact with what those old jazz guys did with contemporary stuff and it was only later that I discovered what they had made their breakthrough with.” For Claes, there are two sides to jazz. “On the one hand, from a distance you could call jazz a style. But for musicians who play jazz themselves, it is much more a way of playing than a genre. If Coltrane had kept on playing bebop, because that was jazz then, modal jazz would never have come into being. If Miles Davis had kept on playing modal until the end of his career, there would have been no fusion. So if you play 1940s-style jazz now, that’s the jazz genre, but for me it lacks the innovative approach that makes jazz so interesting. What’s cool about jazz is that it is both progressive and has a pedigree. So people will always play bebop and Dixieland and there will always be things on the margin that people will only call jazz in a hundred years’ time, and there will always be discussion about what jazz is and isn’t.” “I see jazz above all as extremely welcoming music,” adds Van den Hoof. “That’s why it survives. Take the African influences on Lionel Loueke, or Dave Holland who played with a flamenco guitarist for a while. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any jazz that I have no problems with. I’m 70; over recent weeks, I have listened intently again to the electric Miles and I understand it less than ever.” Surprisingly, Claes compares the language of jazz with that of his bird. “If I don’t play too loud, he starts to join in after a while. [Laughs] In jazz, you have, on the one hand, the patterns, irreverently described as jazz clichés: the basic language. But then there are also harmonic devices that, starting in the Sixties, found their way in via, for example, Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. That is the form of communication, speaking without words, like the birds. So it’s not just about the acrobatic aspect, but also about the narrative, about the conversation.”
Child of his time Each of the jazz greats, according to Claes, developed a mechanism, a way of thinking that ushered in a different time (zeitgeist):
Andrew Claes:
“What’s cool about jazz is that it is both progressive and has a pedigree” Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Ornette Coleman, etc. “If Coltrane were to be born today, I don’t know whether he would have played tenor sax in a quartet with piano, double bass, and drums.” In his own groups, too, Claes tries to focus on the zeitgeist. “In STUFF., we recast the music that appeals to us – Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin, etc. – in a new structure and take it to the dance club. After people have danced to popular music, we do an improvised live take on it. That is exactly the same as in the days of bebop. Back then, to earn a little extra, musicians would first play at a wedding and then have a few beers and play ‘I Got Rhythm’ the way they wanted to. In BRZZVLL, too, which is influenced by Afrobeat, we start out from the idea