Frenchy’s Fracas

General Info
Festival: The Hague Jazz Festival
Location: The Hague (yep..)
When: 19 May 2007

What?
True fans of jazz in Europe (and possibly around the world) know that until last year, The North Sea Jazz Festival was held in the city of The Hague. That festival moved to lovely Rotterdam, but the people from our city of government didn’t take that change lying down, Hell No! They organised an alternative festival, same location, smaller attendance, smaller number of artists, but still full of love for the art of Jazz: the The Hague Festival was born.

The Shows
!Rhytem
Group of youngsters performing nice jazz-funk, these guys are about 18 years old, but there’s some freshness to what they bring. Their sound wasn’t set up correctly at the beginning, so their trumper player was doing his stuff without anybody being able to hear it. These little mishaps could become part of their legend in twenty years

Bennink Borstlap Gierum
Three Dutch jazz musicians who gave an incredible performance! These guys oozed classic jazz, mixing up standards with great improvisations and details. I was very happy to hear this type of jazz, high point of the day.

Marcos Valle / Brooklyn Funk Essentials
Hmmm.. Two interesting concerts, different locations, starting at the same time. Choices, choices. Went for Marcos Valle, a Brazilian National Treasure, but sadly, the gig started way late and had a lot of technical problems, so Hieronymus Fox and I went on to see that evening’s main attraction. Too bad about Brooklyn Funk Essentials too

Koop
Those wacky and talented Swedes, Koop were our closing act for the evening and boy, did they entertain the crowd! These guys mix up great feel-good jazz with mild electronics; I always reckoned they’d be limited to studio quality, but I was wrong: a full band with vibraphones, trombones and an Apple laptop. The cherry on the cake was of course the swinging vocals of miss Yukimi Nagano. Miss Nagano’s vocals were just a bit too brittle for live performance that evening, but it didn’t matter that much: Koop is a brilliant live band.

Conclusion
Great festival, the organisation did have some technical and scheduling problems, but if everything went smoothly, it probably wouldn’t be that enjoyable. I’m really a happy puppy because now I have two great jazz festivals to visit every year!

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General Info
Artist: Soulwax
Location: Het Paard, The Hague
When: 02 July 2005

Who?
Well, check out their site.. These guys from Belgium really know their music! Excellent “electro-rock” with heart and Soul. The Dewaele Brothers (vocals/keyboards - guitar/keyboards) also moonlight occaissionally as “Too Many DJ’s”.
Only listened to an old album of them for about four or five times, but when I read they’d be performing in The Hague, I really had to go and see them!

The Show
Special mention: 2nd Place Driver did the pre-show warm-up thingy and they rocked quite nicely..
Okay the Soulwax performance was great, I was clapping me hands and stomping my feet, singing unknown lyrics and swinging my hips like a granny on LSD!
Funnily enough, just after a week I kinda lost the buzz of the evening, but still..
I liked the setup: the two pairs of musicians facing each other with each a gizmo machine in front of them - the drummer being lonely at the back.
The band performed a great set, but when they switched to more mellow songs, you noticed the singer’s mic didn’t come out loud enough compared to the rest of the music, a bit of a shame.. They played a relatively short set, but for me, this was an excellent introduction to the great music of Soulwax!
Conclusion
Energy, vibe, buzz, noise - nuff said!

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