July 12, 2008: Rotterdam North Sea Jazz Festival Day 2

Today we started with the Kenny Werner Lawn chair Society at 17:30 (I’m officially on the 24 hour clock now), featuring David Sanchez (tenor sax); Randy Brecker (trumpet); Kenny Werner (piano); Scott Colley (bass); and the great Brian Blade (drums). Kenny Werner is a technical phenom and was great to see him live with such a great band.

Kenny Werner Lawnchair Society sans Brian Blade.

They played Werner’s music exclusively and he had some really nice charts. This also was the first time I’ve seen one of my heroes, Brian Blade, live, who was incredibly tasteful and really added to the music. Incidentally, despite not ever seeing Brian Blade live before, I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t Ari Hoenig, who usually plays in Kenny Werner’s group, and who is my favorite drummer at the moment.

I was lucky enough to have seen Ari perform around 5 or 6 weeks ago at Smalls Jazz Club in Harlem, playing an incredible set with his partner-in-crime, the exciting French pianist, Jean Michel Pilc. I’ll take this opportunity to talk a bit about that Jean Michel Pilc Trio concert, as it was one of the most enjoyable jazz performances I’ve ever witnessed and want to document it. Forgive my self-indulgence, but this is blogging, and self-indulgence is the name of the game! I’ll preface this by saying that, to my ears, the Hoenig Pilc Project is one of the most creative and inventive jazz collaborations in existence, and I recommend their music to anyone interested in hearing cutting edge modern jazz. Check out the youtube video below and you’ll hear what I’m talking about, I hope.

After spending the day in NYC hanging with my former college bandmates YP and Jake, we met up with some other college/jazz buddies: Dave, Jack, and Austin and headed over to the club. We got there late into the set of the opening band and watched the last ten minutes or so of their set. After they finished, we walked outside to get some air. Outside of the club, the bouncer who we’d been chatting with told us that Ari was standing on the corner, ostensibly talking over the set list with J.M. Pilc on his cell phone. After feeling star-struck by a guy who walks around the street and is rarely recognized outside of the relatively small jazz community, YP and I waited for him to get off the phone and then went over to chat. I approached him by asking if he has a minute to speak with a fellow drummer from his rival high school, as he went to Germantown Friends and I went to Friends’ Central. After that, I told him how much his music means to me and then YP asked him if he takes requests. At first hesitantly, he responded “well, what did you have in mind.” We then told him that our band transcribed and performed his composition, the title track from his album “The Painter” last semester, and he told us he would see what he could do. We parted ways telling him we were looking forward to the concert.

Once the show was about to begin, Ari got up from his throne, walked over to Jean Michel, and said to him, “The Painter, first alright?” Thereafter, they played a highly energized rendition of the tune, similar to this version with Matt Penman on bass (an amazing player who I will talk more about later). This is part one of the three part youtube video (it’s worth watching the whole thing as this quartet has great chemistry.) The whole concert was just amazing and I can’t wait to hear this band again!

Sorry about the detour, back to where I left off. After Kenny Warner’s Lawnchair Society band, at 19:30, we saw another wizard on the keyboard, Michel Camilo, playing with a trio: Michel Camilo (piano); Charles Flores (bass); Dafnis Prieto (drums). This concert was some of the most intense and burning jazz I’ve ever seen. Michel was so forceful that during the show he even broke his piano bench and had to sit on a stool for the remainder of the set. To get a taste of Michel Camilo’s playing, check out this video of him performing Calle 54 with probably the best Latin Jazz drumset player in the world (whom we also saw perform at the festival, but not together unfortunately), Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez.

Before Michel Camilo’s set began, a guy randomly flagged us down to save the seat next to us for him as the place was filling up quickly. While he was walking over, another guy came up asking for the seat and we told him that it was taken. It turns out that the guy who we reserved the seat for was one of the chief designers of the Ahoy venue for the Festival, a Dutch guy named Hans. We chatted with him before the show.

It happened that the concert had great personal significance to Hans. He told us a story of how his mother used to take him to the North Sea Jazz Festival every year when he was younger, and that a few years ago when his mother was sick in the hospital and unable to attend the festival, he went without her and saw Michel Camilo perform. While the band was playing, he called his mom and held up the phone for over ten minutes so that she could share the festival with him one more time. She passed away a few days later. By the time he finished telling us the story, Hans was near tears. As a result of us accidentally saving him a great seat in the fifth row and center of the venue, Hans told us he felt indebted to us and that he wanted to return the favor. After the great concert, he said he would try to get us tickets to the VIP performers’ jam session at the hotel where all the musicians were staying, the Hilton Rotterdam.

Me and Danny hangin with Hans after the music had ended on Saturday Night.He bought both of us a beer and gave us the tickets at the end of the night. More on the jam session in a bit.

Thereafter, at 21:00, we saw the Randal Corsen Quintet (piano); Roy Hargrove (trumpet); Scott Colley (bass); Horacio “El Negro” Hernández (drums); Pernell Saturnino (percussion), a solid concert, but one that I won’t say more about.

Then, at 22:00, we left Hudson to go to a smaller stage and caught the tail end of the Christian McBride clinic. At the very end, when the legendary bassist was fielding questions, Danny raised his hand, and, noticing his bright orange shirt, McBride said, “I’m gonna take a question from my man in the striped shirt” – the infamous orange American eagle shirt in the photo to the right. Danny asked what he does harmonically when the soloist strays from the form. He responded that it is really a case-by-case determination; when he plays with someone like Joshua Redman, he explained, he strictly follows the form because that’s what Redman wants, but other times he will try to follow the soloist. Good question, Danny. After the talk, we approached McBride and he asked us if we were in the band that played before him based on our red Mafkees hostel wristbands (which looked like the performers’ wristbands). We should have lied. We also meant to ask him about the “bad night” he had six months ago that he mentioned at his concert at UMASS Amherst, but didn’t get around to that either.

At 23:00, we saw what was, in my opinion, the best concert of the festival (even though it was at a relatively smaller stage.) It was Joris Roelofs (clarinet, alto sax); Aaron Goldberg (piano); Matt Penman (bass); and Eric Harland (drums).

from left Aaron Goldberg, Matt Penman, Eric Harland, and some random Dutch sax player named Roeloffs.

Aaron Goldberg, Eric Harland, and Matt Penman are some of the best modern players on the scene. They were forced to play with a guy Eric Harland described to us as “some dude,” a dutch saxophonist who didn’t fit in with the band. Killer concert anyway. After the concert, we hung with Matt and Eric backstage. I told Eric: “I’ve seen you play 4 or 5 times now and every time I’ve been blown away by you.” We also had a brief exchange with Aaron Goldberg who is a great dude who is kinda dorky, but very down to earth considering his success. He is an amazing pianist and was very nice to us.

Also, we talked to Matt Penman for a long time and even got someone to take a picture of us with him. He’s a total bro. We asked him where he’s going after this, and he said he was off to Prague and then Nice. He  also asked us where we were going from the festival. When we mentioned Marseilles, he told us to come see him play with the San Fransisco Jazz Collective (an all star group, with the likes of Miguel Zenon, Joe Lovano, and Eric Harland) in Nice at the Jazz festival that was about to happen there. He also told us to be sure to drink the local wine in Marseilles (we took him up on that). Unfortunately,our prior arrangements made it impossible to get to the Nice Jazz Festival, as we had a non-refundable flight scheduled to Dublin two days before the Nice festival started (otherwise we totally would have done it).

By this point, our heads were spinning, as, in the period of two hours we had talked to several of our idols and, undoubtedly some of the best jazz musicians on the scene, Christian McBride, Eric Harland, Aaron Goldberg, Matt Penman. But that’s not all…

Me and Danny with Matt Penman after his performance with Eric Harland and Aaron Goldberg.

At 2am we attended the VIP North Sea Jam Session at the Hilton Hotel and stayed out until 5am and walked back to the hostel as the sun was rising (yet another romantic moment, Danny).

At the jam, we saw such celebrity musicians as Horatio “El Negro” Hernandez, Matt Penman (who left right as we entered, a big shame as we had talked with him earlier and had hoped to touch based with him again, left), and Aaron Goldberg. We watched Aaron Goldberg jam and hit on some women at the Jam Session and, once he was done with that, we exchanged a few words. Danny worked up the courage to try to sit in, but too many vocalists ruined this possibility (friggin’ vocalists! I kid, I kid:). Still, it was an awesome experience and capped off an epic, inspiring, and overwhelming day of music.

By the time we went back to the hostel, we decided that we might as well stay up and eat the free breakfast that started at 7am before going to sleep. When we woke up at 14:00, we ate lunch and then directly headed off to see to go see another 8 hours of jazz, as the festival ran from approximately 16:00 to midnight each of the three days.

~ by joesil610 on July 26, 2008.