Auteur: hrjellema - pagina 5

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.

VinnieVibes @ Virus (AVRO)

Yesterday we were with VinnieVibes at the Schouwburg Rotterdam, to be part of the Virus show of that day. Virus is a radio and internet program with lots of live music, both classical and jazz, with a very fresh taste. Yesterday they gave carte blanche to the famous Matangi quartet, and they invited us te be part of the show. We played a couple of our own tunes, one piece that Vinnie arranged for Matangi and VinnieVibes together, and I had to explain to Vivienne van den Assem what an Udu was and how it works. You can see the whole broadcast here:

Traeben in DK

Last week Traeben played in Denmark. We play a lot actually, and we’ve got a pretty grand tour schedule, and the name is Danish, but this actually was the first time we played Denmark!

We played in Herning, in a jazzclub called Fermaten. It’s a big, beautiful club that programs internationally (Steve Lukather played the week after) and that has a great atmosphere. Of course we were pretty new to the audience there as well, but as we spoke to people afterwards they liked it very much and appreciated us coming to Denmark. So for everybody who was there: thank you for supporting us!

Click HERE to see a little impression of the concert on facebook.

Wrecking Crew

Due to a friend of mine I got tipped off for checking out the ‘Wrecking Crew’. Nobody knows them, but everybody’s heard them. They were the guys in the ’60 that were doing all the studiowork in L.A., multiple sessions in one day, sometimes even a whole record in a day. To name just a few: drummers Earl Palmer and Hal Blaine (who recorded 35000 tracks in twentyfive years), guitarist Tommy Tedesco and Howard Roberts, saxophonist Plas Johnson and many more. And where we know bands as the Beach Boys, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas etc, they were not always the ones playing on their own albums..

In 2008 a documentary was made about the Wrecking Crew. Unfortunately it was never released, but luckily I could get hold of a copy. It’s great hearing the guys talk about those days, about the hits, and finding out what great musicians they were. They were incredible sightreaders, but a lot of times the only thing they got was a leadsheet with chords. And to find out that most of the famous riffs and hooks that really made a song happen were created on the spot – incredible!

So if you ever by any chance run into this documentary – GO AND WATCH IT!

www.wreckingcrew.tv