Tag: Traeben

Traeben incredible 106%!!!!

Yes, we did it! Or actually, YOU DID IT!!!

To be able to release the next Traeben album we started a crowdfunding campagne to raise money for producing this album and to get you involved in our project. Luckily everybody liked what we were doing, and so we gathered even more than we asked for – an incredible 106%!

We’re very grateful that you guys helped us out, and therefore very pleased te present you our newest album: Looking at the Storm.

10404346_788172244566787_4783435571504395989_n

So you are hereby invited to come to the release-party we’re throwing at Lantaren Venster in Rotterdam, next week September 19th. Tickets are only €10,- (get them here) and it’s going to be a great night! Also if you’re going, let us know by clicking on this facebook-event, and share the event so everybody knows you will be there.

 

Crowdfunding Traeben

As most of you know I’m a member of the Dutch/Danish quartet Traeben, with which we try to combine improvised Jazz music with elements from the Rock genre. We recently recorded our third album that we’re going to release in September in LantarenVenster in Rotterdam. But to complete the new album we need financial support, and therefore we started a crowdfunding campagne at Voordekunst.nl.

On this (Dutch) website you can read all about this project, and there’s a video in which we shorty explain how it works. Also in this video you can hear some of the new music already. So if you like what we’re doing, this is your chance to help us with releasing a great cd in September! Go to the website, click on ‘Steun dit project’, and with every donation (even €10,-) you will support us greatly. At the bottom you’ll find the link, thank you for supporting us and we also hope to see you September 19th in LantarenVenster!

VOORDEKUNST

‘Caldo’

That was really amazing – what an incredible player and guy, and what a great time we had with Joey Calderazzo! The three concerts in Wageningen, Amsterdam and Warsaw were a great experience, the whole trio was burning! Thank you all for coming and thanks for the great responds we got on all three concerts, it was really something..

Now from one thing into another – Traeben will be performing at the Copenhagen International Jazz Festival coming week. We’ll be playing four gigs over there, if you’re around please come by and check us out. We’ll be playing repertoire of our still-to-release new album and some old stuff of course. That’ll be fun too! Check the dates and venues here.

And for everybody who wasn’t in Warsaw: here are two songs in one video from the concert over there (‘Meaning of the Blues’ and ‘Mighty Sword’). Enjoy!

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.

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..

photo

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.

OttawaJazz01

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.

Vrije Geluiden

This sunday Traeben will be featured in the VPRO tv-program ‘Vrije Geluiden‘. Our album PUSH drew the attention of the program, and they asked us to be in it. We were very happy to do the recordings this week at the Bimhuis, and we hope it’s gonna be a great show. We’ll be playing one tune (Top Dog) and Jens and Olaf will answer some questions as personifications of Dutch vs Danish…

Sunday October 14, 10:30 Ned 1.