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Eric Ineke Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter: Eric Ineke Meets The Tenor Players (Daybreak/Challenge 2017)

- Francois Leave a comment

Crisp and alert drumming on Eric Ineke’s latest Challenge release, Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter: Eric Ineke Meets The Tenor Players. The album brings to life performances of the now seventy year old Ineke with legends like Dexter Gordon and Lucky Thompson, and contemporary colleagues like David Liebman and Grant Stewart.

Eric Ineke - Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter: Eric Ineke Meets The Tenor Players

Personnel

Track 1: Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Rein de Graaff, Koos Serierse, Eric Ineke; Track 2: Dexter Gordon, Rob Agerbeek, Henk Haverhoek, Eric Ineke; Track 3: Johnny Griffin, Rein de Graaff, Koos Serierse, Eric Ineke; Track 4: Grant Stewart, Rob van Bavel, Marius Beets, Eric Ineke; Track 5: David Liebman, John Ruocco, Marius Beets, Eric Ineke; Track 6: Clifford Jordan, Rein de Graaff, Koos Serierse, Eric Ineke; Track 7: Lucky Thompson, Rob Madna, Ruud Jacobs, Eric Ineke; Track 8: George Coleman, Rob Agerbeek, Rob Langereis, Eric Ineke

Recorded

Recorded on October 24, 1984 at De Spieghel, Groningen (track 1); November 2, 1972 at De Haagse Jazzclub, The Hague (track 2); September 16, 1990 at De Brouwershoek, Leeuwarden (track 3); May 17, 2014 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam (track 4); November 20, 2014 at De Singer, Rijkevorsel, Belgium (track 5); October 12, 1983 at NCRV Studio, Hilversum (track 6); November 22, 1968 at B14, Rotterdam (track 7) and April 18, 1974 at Hot House, Leiden (track 8)

Released

as DBCHR 75226 in 2017

Track listing

Body And Soul
Stablemates
Wee
Bye Bye Blackbird
Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter
Prayer To The People
Lady Bird
Walkin’


It is an intriguing and a rewarding project, the combination of so many different styles of tenor playing. In his book co-written with Dave Liebman, The Ultimate Sideman, Ineke, premier European modern jazz drummer who played with numerous legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Mobley and Freddie Hubbard, ruminates on the intrinsic bond between the tenor saxophone and drums: “The tenor saxophone is one of the instruments that is really made for jazz music, much like the trap drums. They are quite similar in that respect. It blends very well with the drums, particularly with the cymbal and with the tom tom sounds.” Ineke swings equally hard with tenorists, altoists or baritone players, yet the conversations of the drummer with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, et. al. eloquently prove his point. These conversations also are evidence of Ineke’s flexible approach to the manifold ways of phrasing and timing from the classic heroes and contemporary stunners of jazz.

A lot of crackerjack tenorism on Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter. George Coleman, a monster on tenor and perhaps still undervalued, sets fire to the Hothouse in Leiden with Walkin’. A tune that, incidentally, was so influentially performed in 1954 by Coleman’s band leader of 1963/64, Miles Davis, a session that included Lucky Thompson. On this version, Ineke acts accordingly, ‘bombing’ generously and answering Coleman’s staccato, recurring figures equally furiously. Fire and brimstone!

Dexter Gordon’s typically ‘lazy’ but forceful statements on Stablemates, taken from the sought-after LP All Souls: The Rob Agerbeek Trio Featuring Dexter Gordon, are kept in check by Ineke’s steady beat. Gordon wails one of his great solo’s of the seventies. Pushed to the max, another giant of tenor, Johnny Griffin, is flying home at breakneck speed on the bop standard by Denzil Best, Wee. It’s a propulsive high point of the Rein de Graaff Trio, which included bass player Koos Serierse and is marked by high-level bop drumming with a leading role of the ride cymbal. Rein de Graaff’s Bud Powell-influenced solo is ferocious, masterful, the tension is heightened by bold lines up and down the keys. Johnny Griffin is having serious fun. At the end, the Little Giant sardonically and playfully comments on the prolonged Ineke coda: “Shut up! You drummers playin’ so loud. Jazzzzzz music! Where am I, Leeuwarden? Dankjewel.”

On another side of the spectrum Ineke delicately accompanies Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, whose sensuously masculine, breathy take of Body And Soul is most arresting. There’s the clean, round and honestly emotional tone of Clifford Jordan, who plays his original composition Prayer For The People. Lucky Thompson also possessed a lithe, mesmerizing tone on the tenor saxophone. Thompson, an essential link between swing and bop, is heard on Lady Bird on a radio recording at club B14 in Rotterdam in 1968. 1968… where have all the flowers gone: the period in which the professional career of Eric Ineke, who celebrated his 70th birthday recently at The Bimhuis, really took off.

Also from that venerable venue in Amsterdam stems Ineke’s recording (including regulars from his hard bop outfit Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress, pianist Rob van Bavel and bassist Marius Beets, who also took excellent care of this album’s mixing and mastering) with Grant Stewart. His story of Bye Bye Blackbird is relaxed but driving, motivated by Ineke’s lilting rhythm. At forty-six, the Canadian Stewart is the youngest tenor player on the album. Considering Eric Ineke’s supportive attitude towards young Dutch hard bop guys as well as international students on the Conservatory Of The Hague, where he teaches, it would’ve been the cherry on top if a collaboration with a young lion could’ve been included.

On the title song, Ineke cooperates with long-time collaborator Dave Liebman and John Ruocco. During a rendition of the pretty Kurt Weill composition that alludes to the intrinsic Dixie-feel of early Ornette Coleman tunes, Liebman and Ruocco travel a similar avant-leaning path, Liebman with exuberant tinges, Ruocco more introspective. The beat seems to have time-traveled from Baby Dodds to Ed Blackwell to Eric Ineke. A noteworthy excursion to the woods from the hard bop aficionado, who, lest we forget, periodically traveled to modal landscapes with Rein de Graaff and far-out territory with Free Fair in the mid and late seventies.

Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter is a thoroughly enjoyable reminder of the swing and expertise that Eric Ineke has always brought to his gigs with incoming Americans. And I’m sure it will be a revelation for jazz fans who have heretofore been dependant on hearsay.

Find Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter: Eric Ineke Meets The Tenor Players here.

I Loves You, Porgy

- Francois Leave a comment
Photography: Eddy Westveer
Photography: Eddy Westveer

PORGY & BESS – Good clubs are a blessing for jazz musicians and, as a consequence, for the audience. Professional equipment, a fine-tuned piano, supportive management and atmosphere are all part of the attraction. Porgy & Bess, the famed jazz venue in Terneuzen, The Netherlands, which celebrates its 60th birthday in 2017, scores way above average. The passionate and welcoming handling of affairs by the team built around general manager Maja Lemmen, who has been associated with Porgy & Bess almost from the start, and the warm-blooded atmosphere are something else. Musicians from all over the world love to perform at Porgy & Bess.

Porgy & Bess was founded in 1957 by the Suriname-born Frank Koulen, who had arrived in Dutch Flanders with the Allied Forces in 1944. It started out as a tearoom but soon staged dixieland, and later on, modern jazz. Koulen, who passed away in 1985, was famous for organising street parades, a novelty in Holland. Porgy & Bess has hosted concerts by Chet Baker, Arnett Cobb, Don Byas, Art Blakey, Benny Golson, Ray Brown, Horace Parlan, Cedar Walton, Phil Woods, Lou Donaldson, Nat Adderley, Lee Konitz, Cecil Payne, Ray Bryant, Toots Thielemans, Philip Catherine, Christian McBride, Danilo Perez, Diana Krall and many others. Simultaneously, Porgy & Bess is a cultural institution that also stages roots music, classical music matinees and literary readings.

Frank Koulen, Porgy & Bess
Porgy & Bess, Noordstraat, Terneuzen
Porgy & Bess, interior

Porgy & Bess started off its year of celebration with the return of Porgy regular Roy Hargrove on January 14. In April, festivities continue as Porgy & Bess organizes a Mini Anniversary Festival. On April 20 the Dutch guitarist Anton Goudsmit performs with blues singer Phil Bee, on April 21 Ambrose Akinmusire, one of America’s greatest young trumpet players, performs with musicians from the Conservatory Of Antwerp, April 22 will see a cooperation of the Dutch pianist Bert van den Brink and the Greek pianist/singer Maria Markesini, and on April 23 the Belgian writer Tom Lanoye will mix jazz improv with literature.

For info and tickets, go here.

For my interview with general manager Maja Lemmen, go here.

Photography above: eddywestveer.com

Sunset And The Mockingbird

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Junior Mance

JUNIOR MANCE – There were so many great pianists with varying styles in the hard bop era, it demanded endurance and originality to stand out. Junior Mance certainly has an authentic voice. To illustrate his authority among colleagues and label owners, his discography should suffise. Mance cooperated with, among others, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Clifford Brown, Gene Ammons and Cannonball Adderley and recorded prolifically well into the 00’s, his last album being 2012’s The Three Of Us. Mance is eighty-nine years old, but unfortunately, not well. Flophouse received the following e-mail from co-producer Sarit Work about a documentary that’s in the making of Junior Mance called Sunset And The Mockingbird:

I’m producing a feature documentary about the love story of legendary jazz pianist Junior Mance and his wife and manager, Gloria Clayborne Mance. The film is co-directed by Jyllian Gunther (The New Public, PullOut) and Adam Kahan (The Case of the Three-Sided Dream).

Junior suffered a stroke in 2012, which led to the onset of dementia. Though his musical abilities were untouched, his mental and physical decline has forced Gloria’s role to take on a whole new meaning; she is now faced with winding down Junior’s legendary career as he looses his identity — while still, somehow, maintaining her own.

You can watch the trailer here and donate to make possible the cooperation of an editor.

Jazzland, 1961
Jazzland, 1961
Capitol, 1964
Capitol, 1964
Tuba, 1967
Tuba, 1967

Reachin’ Out To Rob

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Rob Agerbeek

ROB AGERBEEK/HANK MOBLEY – Just recently, the Dutch Jazz Archive released To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland. (See review here.) A great document that fills the musical gaps of Mobley’s ten-day stay in The Netherlands in 1967. A big part of the CD is dedicated to Mobley’s gig at Rotterdam’s club B14 with the Rob Agerbeek Trio. More than enough reason to get in touch with veteran hard bop, boogie-woogie and swing pianist Rob Agerbeek and ask about his recollections with the revered tenor saxophonist.

FM: How did that gig came about?
RA: I got a call from a small-time impresario, Wim Johan Kuijper, who asked me: ‘Do you want to play with Hank Mobley? ‘ I said, ‘that’s a silly question! Of course!’

FM: It must’ve been quite something to meet Hank Mobley before the show.
RA: I expected a big, impressive cat, you know. But he was just a young guy. It was a beautiful day, late Winter, early Spring. I was there with my wife. He strolled into the place, threw his horn case into the corner. He asked me, ‘where you from?’ I said: ‘The Hague.’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I mean, where you from?’ Then I got it. I explained that I was born in Dutch Indonesia. ‘Aha,’ said Hank, ‘that’s the place with the king who plays clarinet.’ Almost. ‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s Thailand.’

I was thinking, Jesus Christ, I better set my best foot forward on stage! But it turned out pretty well.

FM: It was a one-off trio, right?
RA: Yes. I hadn’t played with bass player Hans van Rossem. But I was familiar with drummer Cees See.

FM: Was the setlist discussed or did Mobley counted off the tunes on the spot?
RA: Basically, he called a tune and asked if that was ok. Very nice.

FM: The sound quality, quite logically, isn’t fantastic. But you can hear you’re a bed of roses for him, despite the fact that he sounds a bit fatigued as well. You were already a very accomplished player and, naturally, familiar with standards like Autumn Leaves and Like Someone In Love. Mobley’s Three-Way Split was a lesser-known affair. Oddly enough, it’s the swinginest tune!
RA: I knew that tune from the album with Andrew Hill on piano. (No Room For Squares, FM) Yes, Hank liked my playing, afterwards he invited me for a gig to Paris. Sometime later we played at the American School in Paris with Art Taylor, trumpeter Dizzy Reece and bass player Jimmy Woode. Mobley had a session in Paris and wanted me in on it. But Francis Wolff had already booked another pianist, Vince Benedetti. Mobley was rather peeved about being overruled. It turned out to be the album The Flip.

FM: At least now your cooperation with Mobley in Holland is preserved for posterity.
RA: O yeah, it’s a wonderful job by the Dutch Jazz Archive. I’m very honored. I also really like those tunes with the Hobby Orkest.

FM: Mobley in a big band setting, really surprising. The context suits Mobley very well, he’s in great form. It would’ve been really nice if Mobley would’ve done a big band album in his lifetime.
RA: Yes, absolutely. Well, early in his career Mobley did play in Dizzy Gillespie’s band, of course.

Find To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland here.

Knight Rider

- Francois Leave a comment
Photography: Map Boon
Photography: Map Boon

ERIC INEKE – A lack of taste and decency from the officials may have prevented the Ajax stadium being christened Johan Cruijff Stadium a year after the passing of Holland’s soccer genius, they sure know how to treat their jazz luminaries. On his 70th birthday on Saturday, April 1, which was celebrated with a concert at The Bimhuis, drummer Eric Ineke, who during a fulfilling career of almost fifty years cooperated with legends like Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Dizzy Gillespie, was knighted as Ridder in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau for his outstanding contributions to the Dutch jazz realm by the deputy mayor Simone Kukenheim. An otherwise less formal evening, hosted by Cees Schrama and Frank Jochemsen, was divided into a series of concise sets by Dutch powerhouse line-ups including Tineke Postma, Rein de Graaff, Marius and Peter Beets, driven by Ineke’s trademark propulsive style in the tradition of Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones. Ineke’s regular hard bop quintet Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress performed twice and during the second set was supplemented with alto saxophonist Tineke Postma. De Graaff and Ineke, buddies-in-soul since the late sixties, played freely around the beat in standards like How Deep Is The Ocean, tight-knit as usual. Ineke also responded enthusiastically to Postma, answering her adventurous structural improvisations with like-minded, horn-like phrases on snare and tom. Horns-a-plenty: tenor saxophonists Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and Simon Rigter provided mature and tasteful tenor tales. The young trumpeter Gidon Nunes Vaz is a rapidly developing musician with a beautiful tone and a style best likened to forebears as Kenny Dorham. Pianist Peter Beets, just back in town from a concert of Paul McCartney compositions with Roger Kellaway in New York, clearly relishes fiery, Oscar Peterson-type takes on tunes as Con Alma. The trio with Peter Beets also accompanied promising singer and organizer of the show, Jurjen Donkers. While the first set of the JazzXpress focused fluently on Dexter Gordon tunes as Fried Bananas and The Panther, the second set harked back to the glory days of mid-sixties, avant-leaning hard bop that was being made on the Blue Note and Impulse labels. It was an absolute gas, Jarmo Hoogendijk’s Waltz For Woody and Ray Brown’s Lined With A Groove being stunning high points. Pianist Rob van Bavel tapped into his seemingly limitless reservoir of inventive voicings and impressionistic lines. During the final jam on Rhythm-A-Ning, all participants present on stage, Ineke’s hard, alert swing was still in check. The audience was delighted and the knighted 70-year old Ineke was in good spirits.

During Eric Ineke’s Birthday Jam, the new Challenge Records release Let There Be Life, Love And Laughter: Eric Ineke Meets The Tenor Players was presented. An overview of Ineke’s cooperations over the years with tenor saxophonists like Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Lucky Thompson, George Coleman, Clifford Jordan, Grant Stewart and John Ruocco. Find the album here.

Photography: Map Boon

Hank Mobley To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland (Dutch Jazz Archive 2017)

- Francois 2 Comments

To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland reveals a tenor saxophonist who may not display the kind of brilliance of his golden years in the late fifties and early sixties, but nevertheless remains a singular class act, especially in, surprise, a big band context.

Hank Mobley - To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland

Personnel

Tracks 1-3: Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Pim Jacobs (piano), Wim Overgaauw (guitar), Ruud Jacobs (bass), Han Bennink (drums) Tracks 4 & 5: Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Ferdinand Povel & Sander Sprong (tenor saxophone), Piet Noordijk & Herman Schoonderwalt (alto saxophone), Joop Mastenbroek (baritone saxophone), Frans Mijts, Gerard Engelsma, Eddie Engels, John Bannet & Fons Diercks (trumpet), Rudy Bosch, Cees Smal, Bertil Voller & Erik van Lier (trombone), Frans Elsen (piano), Joop Scholten (guitar), Rob Langereis (bass), Evert Overweg (drums) Tracks 6-10: Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Rob Agerbeek (piano), Hans van Rossem (bass), Cees See (drums)

Recorded

Recorded on March 20 at Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam (tracks 1-3), March 28 at VARA Studio, Hilversum (tracks 4 &5) and March 29, 1968 at Jazzclub B14, Rotterdam (tracks 6-10

Released

as NJA 1604 in 2017

Track listing

Summertime
Sonny’s Tune
Airegin
I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
Twenty-Four And More
Blues By Five
Like Someone In Love
Veird Blues
Three-Way Split
Autumn Leaves


Expert jazz sleuthing. The Dutch Jazz Archive unearthed ten live and studio cuts from the quintessential hard bop tenorist’s sojourn in the Netherlands in 1968. I think to myself, what a wonderful hard bop world! Mobley was a heroin addict and when he was kicking the habit resorted to booze. The classic pit fall in an all too typical jazz tragedy. Convicted twice, risking a long prison sentence due to the American three-strikes-and-you’re-out-system, Mobley had good reason to bug out for the dug out. What better way than to cross the great pond. Contrary to belief, Mobley arrived in The Netherlands instead of the U.K., touring France afterwards, where he recorded The Flip, and, subsequently, the U.K. and Denmark. The package of the CD includes great photographs and detailed liner notes including memories of collaborators pianist Rob Agerbeek and bass player Ruud Jacobs. Mobley played live with Agerbeek’s one-off trio in Rotterdam’s club B14 on March 29, with the Pim Jacobs Trio including Ruud Jacobs and guitarist Wim Overgaauw at the Bellevue Theatre on March 20, and, another studio session, with the Hobby Orkest on March 28, an orchestra of Dutch luminaries that gathered irregularly, including Dutch bop veterans and talents Piet Noordijk, Ferdinand Povel and Frans Elsen.

In his indispensable book on the sidemen of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Hard Bop Academy, Alan Goldsher offers a hip baseball analogy to illustrate the brilliance of Hank Mobley, labeling him as a five-tool player, a rare breed of all-round excellence. Mobley ‘had killer chops. He had a silky tone. He could tell the hell out of a story. He was a smokin’ composer. And he could swing you into the ground. Five tools. Six, if you count the fact that he looked great on a record cover.’ How true. Mobley’s a legend that carved out a niche during the era of the towering giants Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. The ultimate ‘musician’s musician’ – Leonard Feather’s famous appreciation of Mobley as ‘the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone’ stems from 1960 – Mobley’s unspectacular style, unassuming personality and the fact that he never led a stable outfit perhaps prevented widespread public recognition. By 1968, media coverage of the ‘new thing’ and stars like Miles Davis overpowered attention for a more conventional player like Mobley. Short on publicity but a saint for European mainstream jazz aficionados. Sound and style-wise, Mobley’s tone, still relatively soft and, as Mobley himself defined it, ’round’, had more bite to it, while his slightly dragging beat and relaxed phrasing are ever-present. Mobley retained a good portion of his innate sense of logic and continuity but at the same time concentrated on staccato lines and had shopped at John Coltrane’s store of harmonic finesse. No summer sale there, top quality stuff all-year round.

In the live setting of club B14, Mobley also focuses on suspenseful chopped lines, but simultaneously on all-too drastic twists, turns and ad-libs, therefore drifting away from a long-lined, coherent tale. He sounds a bit fatigued. The discovery of the tapes from club B14 is a blessing, but one has to ‘read through the lines’ of the rather inferior sound quality. In general, Rob Agerbeek has the upper hand, expertly mixing modern jazz with the traditional legacy of blues and boogie-woogie in Miles Davis’ Veird Blues and Mobley’s Three-Way Split, which is the liveliest tune of the performance. On the other hand, Mobley’s work in the studio on March 20, the day Mobley stepped out of the airplane with a probable jet lag, is focused and marked by Mobley’s unique sense of rhythm and suave phrasing. The Pim Jacobs Trio is excellent, the full-bodied, walkin’ bass lines of Ruud Jacobs and Wim Overgaauw’s swift phrasing and delicate clusters of chords in Sonny Rollins’ Airegin are especially imposing. The most surprising features on To One So Sweet are Mobley’s two tunes with the Hobby Orkest, the only known recording of the tenor saxophonist with a big band. The band is lively, the arrangements are smart and Mobley, one of the kings of the hard bop quintet format, is all velvet, sensuality, glowing blocks of wood in the fireplace. Marvelous! Clearly, it’s unfortunate that no one came up with the idea of recording Mobley in a big band setting earlier in his career, nor would afterwards.

A swell idea. Like the idea of The Dutch Jazz Archive to prowl public and private vaults for Mobley material, which it acted upon superbly.

To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland is the fourth release in the Dutch Jazz Archive’s series Treasures Of Dutch Jazz, following releases of Boy Edgar, Ben Webster and Don Byas. You can order it on the website of The Dutch Jazz Archive here.

Just Friends

- Francois Leave a comment

ERIC INEKE – On Saturday, April 1, drummer Eric Ineke will be celebrating his 70th birthday with a Super Jam at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam. There will be performances by Ineke and other Dutch luminaries such as Rein de Graaff, Ruud Jacobs, Peter Beets and Tineke Postma. Find info and tickets here.

During a long and fulfilling career, Ineke, foremost European modern jazz drummer in the tradition of Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Billy Higgins and Louis Hayes, has collaborated with countless American legends like Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard and Johnny Griffin and sustained long-time associations with Ferdinand Povel, Dick Vennik, Ben van de Dungen & Jarmo Hoogendijk, Benjamin Herman and Dave Liebman. For nearly four decades, Ineke has been playing with the Rein de Graaff Trio. Ineke has been leading his own hard bop quintet, Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress, for eleven years now.

Eric Ineke, 70's
Eric-Ineke-hires