Categorie: news - pagina 4

Jens on his improv-practices

Recently Jens Larsen (the guitarist and main composer of Traeben) started to write about his practices for improvising. As he mentions in one of his lessons, I also had a talk with him about the fact that there are hundreds of books with exersizes, hundreds of DVD’s about specific styles, but almost no information about how to put the stuff you practice into your playing. How do you do that, what do you do with an exercise on stage?

Among other things Jens talks about that, trying to explain how he does that (which is not only interesting for guitarists). Of course some stuff is really guitar-only, but I do think he speaks about a lot of interesting matter. Check it out, and read it on his website.

Slagwerkkrant

This month I’m featured in the Slagwerkkrant, the dutch drum magazine. Thanks to Mark van Schaick they reviewed two cd’s (Holland Bigband and Sven Ratzke) and interviewed me about my approach to both cd’s, the recording process and the differences in working in those two bands (bigband vs smallband with song approach). Obviously it’s a whole different world, so it’s nice to see the comparison in one article. Read the interview online here:

http://www.slagwerkkrant.nl/nieuws/artikel/25-12992/haye-jellema-in-slagwerkkrant-180

Traveling..

So, february is now officially the travel-month. After playing Krakow – Poland recently with VinnieVibes (which was great, flying in and out, leaving and back home in 36 hours, but a great audience) I’m now looking forward to drive 1000 kilometers to Copenhagen – Denmark next week. They’re having a big event called Vinterjazz, organised by the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and we’re very happy to be playing there with Traeben. This band is located in the Netherlands, but with two Danish members it’s really nice to be able to play such a big event in Denmark too. If you’re around, we’ll play our Valentinesgig the 14th in the club called Metronomen, and it’s going to be great!

Then back from Copenhagen I’ll be spending time with my students at the conservatory here in Amsterdam, just before I leave for a tour in Russia with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. And this is going to be the heavy, real touring vibe. I just received the schedule for it, and basically you could say that the first night we spend in a hotel is going to be after 5 days. The distance will be St. Petersburg to Vladivostok (!), coming from Amsterdam that is 8200km one way. We’ll play 11 gigs in 12 days, and since the cities are not in a row following up to the east, we’ll be traveling back and forth as well. But we will visit some cities I’ve never been before, so hopefully I can get a glimpse of those when we’re there. For instance, check out Norilsk on googlemaps, the most northern city of siberia, one of the few above the Arctic Circle – if it stays like this it’s going to be mild, last week it was -42 Celcius..

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Holland Big Band – Push Forward

And here it is, the new cd of the Holland Big Band! We’ve recorded it a couple of weeks ago, containing pieces written by different band members, and arranged by Hollands best arrangers. Also this cd was recorded in Fattoria Musica by Chris Weeda, and it is going to be released next week with a presentation at the Bimhuis – Amsterdam (nov 22nd). It contains swing, boogaloo, beautiful ballads and some heavy grooves, altogether a great energetic album called PUSH FORWARD!

Here’s an impression of the studio session, also check www.hollandbigband.com for more info or to order your copy of the album:

Touring Italy

Talking about touring, this was something incredible. In the middle of the summer the Glenn Miller Orchestra did a tour in Italy, where we travelled more than 5000 kilometres, up and down ‘The Boot’, from Bari to Venice to Aosta. Everywhere we were received real nicely, we saw beautiful places, had incredible food (!) and played on awesome venues! To give you an impression of what it looked like, I put some photos here, I hope you enjoy it!

Traeben touring Canada

Another great thing I did this summer was going on tour with Traeben. We toured Canada, playing gigs at the famous Ottawa Jazz Festival, Toronto Jazz Festival (at the Rex), Montreal Jazz Festival (at the House of Jazz) and in London, at the Sunfest Festival. We did drive a lot of kilometres in our rented Dodge Van, but we had an awesome time with very nice audiences, great venues, playing hours and hours of music in our car, and we even did some sightseeing in the Toronto Tower and at the Niagara Falls. To get an impression of our tour, check out the pictures here.

By the way, if you want to stay updated on what Traeben is doing (a new album is being recorded now and will be released in 2014), subscribe to the newsletter on their website.

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Sven Ratzke – Songs in a Cabaret

Now that was a busy and great summer! Basically I wasn’t home for two whole months, with trips including Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and almost all of Italy! Great places, great people, I’ll tell you more about it later.

Right now I want to tell you about a cd-recording we did this summer, the new album of Sven Ratzke. With new arrangements of gorgeous songs by Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Caven and Hildegard Knef, but also newly, especially for Ratzke written songs by Mathilde Santing, Cora Frost and New York-famous Rachelle Garniez. On the cd you’ll hear some guest performances of Eric Vloeimans, Tuur Floorizoone, Claron McFadden and Fay Lovsky. It’s a real beauty, check out this YouTube promo:

The cd is called Songs in a Cabaret and you can find it at Challenge Records International or buy it in Sven’s online shop. You can also attend the cd-release on september 25th at the Bimhuis Amsterdam, tickets available here.