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Written By: frenchy on October 27, 2009 2 Comments

When I look at my tastes and interests in music, I can trace back a lot of their origins to my parents. Both are born in the 1940s on the island of Curacao, so what was their musical influence on me?

First of all, I have to explain that I started listening to my parents music collection at the age of six or seven. My first memory of musical enjoyment was of Melanie, the 70s folk singer. I even remember having a poster of her hanging in my room.
The first album I remember actually putting on the turntable myself was the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. I played that sucker endlessly and I even went to see the movie twice; possibly not a movie for a seven year old but it was fun!

Jesus Christ Superstar



Another conscious musical discovery: the Beatles. My dad had the Red Best of Album (1962-1966); I remember playing those songs and learning the lyrics without sometimes understanding what they meant: what’s a Paperback Writer and what’s with the Norwegian Wood? Uhm.. What’s Paperback? Somehow I’ve always related with the Nowhere Man lyrics, funny..

beatles-red-large



The old man also had some 70s rock in his collection: ELO, Boston, Chicago (yuck!) and.. Alice Cooper.
Again, I didn’t get all the lyrics, but my parents were getting worried about their nine year old, singing You Can Go To Hell, word by word with a nasty growl in my throat..

Less than an hour from Venezuela, there also was a South American influence in my dad’s collection: can’t remember most of the artists, but he had some tapes of Latin Crooner Nelson Ned aka El Pequeno Gigante (The Little Giant and yes, he’s tiny or more PC: vertically challenged). Didn’t really work for me. I didn’t get into the whole Latin thing.

Classical music, yes! Well, kinda. We had this cassette tape by Waldo de los Rios, with modern interpretations of Classical music Classics. Have a look/listen on Youtube, I’m too ashamed to embed the man’s music. I think many serious fans of Classical music will have a tough time appreciating these (re)arrangements ;)
I knew a limited number of Classical songs by heart without knowing their title or their importance, let alone how they originally should have sounded.

Let’s not forget my mom: from her I got my dose of Mahalia Jackson and some more gospel music. And both her and my dad liked the Abba thing, which I now find a bit embarrassing ;)
Another possible influence my mom had on my musical taste was West-Indian music: calypso, soca, etc. I’m not sure if we had any albums but we did listen to that stuff on the radio, like Salt Fish by The Mighty Sparrow.






One special moment in my early musical life was the discovery of Jazz. Well, not the whole collection of genres and styles, just this one single track. My dad had the 45 of this song, I didn’t know what it was when I first put it on, but when it started with that weird rhythm on piano I was totally blown away. Then, that lazy, laid-back [brass] began to play and I was mesmerized. I still boast of being able to ‘recite’ the whole track by heart which of course is pure bullshit. The track? Dave Brubeck’s Take Five.








There was quite a lot of my parents’ music that I didn’t like: The Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel come to mind, although later on I learned to appreciate Paul Simon’s work a bit. That’s the other thing, my dad sometimes tried to share good music with me when I was in my teens and being a teenager I just didn’t/couldn’t agree with his opinion/advice. He’s the one who told me to listen to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Paul Simon’s Graceland. At first I just didn’t listen to those albums, but after a while I really enjoyed them a lot. I mean, Thriller introduced me to the genius of Quincy Jones.

So, yes, it’s fun to look back at what I took from my parents’ music collection and what I learned very quickly was that, like them, I liked different kinds and genres of music. It helped me keep a healthy appitite for music in all its variations. Still can’t get over the Abba thing tho..

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Written By: frenchy on May 6, 2008 4 Comments

North Sea Jazz Logo

So, uhm..
I’ve just had a look at this year’s schedule for the North Sea Jazz Festival and.. it’s nice and complicated!

Friday, July 11:

  • My girl Jill Scott; Adele, the New Girl; Cassandra Wilson, a Voice
  • Instrumental: Herbie Hancock Quintet and Ron Carter Quartet

Saturday, July 12:

  • Victor Wooten (HellYeah!); Roy Hargrove Quintet
  • Vocalists: José James; Chaka Kahn (can the lady still do it?)
  • Paul Simon; Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson (yes, HF..)

Sunday, July 13:

Now, I’m not sure if I’ll be doing all three days again, I really want to see Mehldau, but the rest of the schedule that day seems a bit thin, we’ll see!
Another chance to see Jill from Philly is great too!

I do love me some music, boyz-n-girlz..

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Written By: frenchy on December 30, 2007 No Comment

General Info
Festival: NuMoonFestprofile At MySpace
Location: Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam
When: 13-15 December 2007

What’s it about?
Well, read about the festival here. It’s an interesting combo of different styles of jazz, electronic music, etc. and also movie documentaries. It’s my second visit, read my review of last year’s experience here. I’m a bit late with this review so my recollection might be a bit hazy, sorry..

Day 3 (15-Dec)
So remember, you never know what to expect on this festival and this year’s shows were diverse as ever. First off, a not so interesting performance at the cafe podium from Haaleprofile At MySpace. The stuff didn’t work for me, oh well.
After that we got a very big black guy accompanied by guitar and accordion/squeeze-box, singing this incredible falsetto, which was nice. Picked up the closing fifteen minutes from Reboot Your Soul, a Dutch jazzy band fronted by Rob Van Der Wouw. Not bad, saw them this summer at the North Sea Jazz festival, the contrast was noticeable: the crowd was about a tenth of what was at NSJ, but they carried on as good as they could.
In the same hall we were treated by the good people of the Silent Disco. If ever you get a chance to see and hear this event, please do try it out!! It’s an simple concept but a bit hard to explain: everybody get headphones to listen to what the DJ is playing. Imagine a crowd with headphones on dancing to something you’re not hearing and having some wicked fun!
Back to the festival, in the main hall the Numoonlab Orchestra was performing an incredible set. The core band played from beginning to end during the whole evening and other performers would come up and do their thing and then move off.
For me the high point was the enigmatic and energetic and weirder than weird miss Ursula Ruckerprofile At MySpace. She did her poetry like a fierce lioness, wow!!

Conclusion
With this year’s edition there were too many uninteresting performances and quite some main stream stuff too. But the Numoonlab Orchestra was an incredible experience! Miss Rucker was the wacky cherry on top!! I’ll be there next year, because it’s a chance to discover stuff..

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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Written By: frenchy on December 14, 2006 One Comment

General Info
Artist: Herbie HancockHerbie Hancock profile At MySpace
Location: Vredenburg, Utrecht
When: 12 December 2006

Who?
Well, read about this grand old man of jazz, fusion and almost everything concerning music here. Was there with me mate, ArAm.
I knew HH from his incredibly weird video for the Rockit track from 1983 (holy $#!t). And later on, I discovered his jazz talents through his excellent Round Midnight soundtrack.
This musician’s always been on my radar as one that I have to see performing his stuff live, and now I finally got the chance!

The Show
Tough call describing this concert, but I’ll try anyway: wow!
Incredible musicians:

Great selection of tracks
There a lot of stuff I didn’t know or recognize but his Watermellon Man and Cantaloupe were incredible. Some tracks were strange because although I didn’t like some parts of the tracks (a solo, a theme), I still was overwhelmed by the pure passion and craftsmanship that shone through. This was even the case with their version of the much hated I Just Called To Say I Love You by mister S. Wonder.
On one piece, the guys were driving me nuts: the bass was doing his own stuff on a different tempo and beat from the drummer. That kept on for a coupla minutes, I was totally flabbergasted.. The solo performance by Lionel Loueke was also great.

I also liked the way Hancock MC’d the whole event: sometimes funny, sometimes interesting, never uninterested.

Conclusion
It’s nice to be right about a hunch: I expected a great concert performed by genius musicians and that it would be possible that some of the music wouldn’t work for me. I knew/guessed that just seeing and hearing (lousy acoustics btw on the top level of the hall) these guys would be inspiring and possibly influential. I also knew that I’d be writing a review that sounded like a total a$$-kissing fanboy, heheh..

Rating: ★★★★★

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Written By: frenchy on December 11, 2006 8 Comments

General Info
Festival: NuMoonFest
Location: Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam
When: 9/10 December 2006

What’s it about?
Well, read about the festival here. It’s an interesting combo of different styles of jazz, electronic music, etc. and also movie documentaries. It’s my first visit, but it’s definitely a great experience! Was there with me mates, Hieronymus Fox and DenDen.

Day 1 (09-DEC)
Hazy recollection, it’s the apfelkorn and sleep deprivation, bare with me ;) Enjoyed a nice set by Belgian band Sweet Coffee, but was very much impressed by young Dutch talent Jeruma. The guy has a great voice!
The main attraction of the evening for me was that crazy combo of ultimate weirdness: Benny Sings with Rednose District. Awesome performance, played a lot of stuff I like of their album. These guys were a bit too mellow sometimes, chatting with each other and almost neglecting the audience, but hey, they’re Superstars (at least, here in Holland). I didn’t mind that too much coz when they connected with the audience, it was very good stuff!
This evening’s closing act: C-Mon and Kypski. Wow! These guys are funny and off-beat combining all possible styles of music and instrumentation. Much, much better than the stuff I heard on their myspace site.

Day 2 (10-DEC)
Slow start of the evening, still a bit hung over, but all for a good cause, heheh.. First surprise of the evening: Miss Sabrina Starke, damn! A very young and talented soul singer who for sure will mature into a songstress in the near future. At this moment she sounds a bit like Randy Crawford (but with more depth) and that’s quite an achievement! Dutch singer Corey was performing on another stage at the same time, but she really lost out to Starke.
Next on the menu: Monsieur Dubois, a Dutch jazz band with great musicians and a groovy modern feel. Great performance, but after ten minutes, Hieronymus Fox told me we should go listen to the best thing happening during this festival: Leslie Nielsen!! Nope, not the actor, but a small three-piece band with excellent musicians. These guys work hard, very very hard to entertain their audience and seem to have fun in doing so. They were playing at the same time as Monsieur Dubois and again the smaller stage drew the largest crowd. Lady Sherma did a coupla tracks on (guest) vocals and totally blew the roof off the place!

Final performance by Briskey was interesting: a Moloko/Portishead hybrid with incredibly motivated musicians – liked the lady doing the vocals: she dominated the stage with her presence.

Conclusion
It’s safe to say that for me, this festival was a great experience: listening to artists trying something different, something new. And listening to musicians I never heard of before offers both rewards and annoyances (Nelson & Djosa). So, yep, it was highly enjoyable!

Rating: ★★★★☆

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