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I’m a little behind on the shows I’ve seen recently. And with all the festivals there’s so much to tell and so little time. But now it’s time for the North Sea Jazz festival. It’s a three day festival but we always choose a single day. This year I was more in favour of the second day but we chose to go the third day. And it turned out a good day as well.

North Sea Jazz at Ahoy Rotterdam, 13 July 2008

Besides all other reasons to go this festival in Rotterdam like nice drinks, nice food, nice atmosphere and good company there’s one important reason why I keep coming back: a chance to see a lot of great musicians and drum players in particular that are hard to see otherwise. And this year it was no exception. There were too many drum players to choose from: Jeff Tain Watts, Horacio Hernandez, Al Foster, Antonio Sanchez, the list goes on and on. And other fine musicians as well of course: Branford Marsalis, Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, Maceo Parker, Roy Hargrove, etc. etc. Unfortunately there are always the so called ‘plus concerts’ where you have to pay extra. It’s already quite expensive taking into account the ticket, train ticket, food and drinks so we always skip those concerts. No Branford Marsalis, Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter this time. We had to make some hard choices between the days but also between performers. In the end I chose Zappa Plays Zappa, Phil Woods, Brad Mehldau Trio, Room Eleven, Antonio Sanchez and Oregon.

Zappa Plays Zappa (Ronald says: 4 out of 5)

I love Frank Zappa’s music and it’s a shame I never got to see him live. Though it is pretty complicated music it always has this feel of fun and fooling around (although it’s not fooling around at all of course). I was very happy when I heard about his son’s project, Dweezil Zappa’s ‘Zappa Plays Zappa’. Unfortunately somehow I could never make it to the show and he even played with some original band members of the past like stunt guitar player Steve Vai and drum gods and two of my drum heroes Terry Bozzio and Vinnie Colaiuta. This time however he’s touring with a very young band but that turned out not to be a bad thing at all. These guys could play! He did have vocalist Ray White with him who toured with Frank Zappa in the past making the songs pretty authentic sounding. They played everything very naturally and everyone got plenty of solos to go wild on. Dweezil gave his fellow band members lots of space and was quite modest himself. And he shouldn’t be because he’s a very fine and skilled guitar player. I’m sure his dad would be proud.

Phil Woods & Friends (Ronald says: 3 out of 5)

“If you like good old bebop then you have to see Phil Woods”. That’s what I read. He’s one of the players of the old generation and was referred to as the new Bird. I love Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, so I was very curious.  But Phil Woods is already quite old and so it was more like Friends & Phil Woods. Seated in a chair he opened the concert with a couple of songs before having to leave. Fortunately his band was pretty good especially Jesse Davis who, like Phil, is playing alto sax as well. After a break Phil returned to the stage and played a beautiful song and solo. No doubt about it that the old master still is a good player. Who can blame him for being old.

Brad Mehldau Trio

Someone suggested to check these guys out. Unfortunately there were more people who got that idea and it was impossible to get in. So hopefully next time they will program him in a bigger space. I went shopping for CDs instead. I got me the latest Antonio Sanchez album ‘Migration’ and New Cool Collective’s ‘Out Of The Office‘. And some old Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespy, etc. albums together with Wayne Shorter’s ‘Alegria‘ and Roy Hargrove’s ‘Nothing Serious‘. Like a kid in a candy store…

Antonio Sanchez (Ronald says: 4 out of 5)

I got to see Antonio Sanchez a year ago when he was playing with Joshua Redman on this festival and it was great. So I was really excited to see him play with his own band. He’s a very creative drum player that not only masters his instrument perfectly but is also finding ways in making it sound differently. The other musicians of his band are also playing with lots of enthusiasm. The sax players, David Sanchez on tenor and Miguel Zenon on alto, both get lots of space to show their stuff although Zenon occasionally overdoes it a bit with his shrill sound. Of course they are playing many songs of Antiono’s album ‘Migration’ that is definitely worth a listen.

Room Eleven

I heard a lot of good things about this Dutch band and decided to check them out. I listened to their album briefly but wasn’t really convinced yet. Unfortunately I found out too late that their performance was rescheduled. Hopefully I can catch them some other time. So we got some food, saw a glimpse of Maceo Parker (see you soon in Paradiso like every year Maceo!) and I got me some Ben and Jerry’s…mmmmmm.

Oregon (Ronald says: 3 out of 5)

I didn’t know this band but someone suggested to go see them. I was surprised to hear that this was the first time they were playing the festival although they have been around since the ’70s. Their 2000 album ‘In Moscow‘ earned them 4 Grammy nominations and their latest album ‘1000 Kilometers‘ received 2 Grammy nominations. And it was showing from the start that these are very fine musicians. Their music is quite relaxed and laid back creating beautiful sound scapes. Paul McCandless plays a variety of instruments and gets plenty of time to play solos. It seems the master mind of the band is Ralph Towner who plays the piano and acoustic guitar most of the time and wrote most compositions. Mark Walker plays a combination of drums and percussion and does that in a very convincing and creative way including some hand drumming bits. Since it is pretty relaxed most of the time it doesn’t really catch fire but that’s not the goal of the band. At the end they also play a completely improvised piece that also stays pretty relaxed. I will definitely listen to some of their albums soon.

And then it’s time to go back home by metro, just missed the train so I have to wait a while for the next one and do the last bit by bike until I finally can go to sleep with all that beautiful music jazzing around my head. Brilliant.