It was about time we talked to Kika Sprangers (27). In 2019 we established that the saxophonist is ‘one of the greatest promises of jazz’. Since then she has won the Rogier van Otterloo Award, she was given a ‘residence’ in TivoliVredenburg and she has made no fewer than three albums. her latest, Mind’s Eye, has just come out (at least not on the streaming services yet, because why give your music away right away?). And now we are in her 1930s upstairs apartment in the Utrecht district of Zuilen, where at first sight only a modest row of LPs reminds of her love of jazz.
Who is Kika Sprangers and how did she become one of the greatest jazz promises? Sprangers stands out with compositions full of singable melodies with special ideas. She has a preference for the soft, but her tone is always pronounced and compelling. Once she starts a solo, she won’t let you go.
What does she think she excels at? ‘But the sound, that’s where it starts and ends. You have to be able to say something with one note. I try to be an open book, like: here you have my emotion. I certainly don’t fall into the category of virtuosos who play a lot of notes. When I started, I was very much into the grooving corner, but I feel more at home in music where the melody comes first. There is nothing wrong with being recognizable. It really gives me such a kick when I hear my band members singing my themes after a rehearsal.’
first sax
Sprangers was born in Nijmegen in 1994. She got her first sax when she was 8, a hand-off from her older sister. Key moment two on the way to becoming one of the biggest jazz promises: her entrance into the music school De Lindenberg. ‘I chose sax and piano. In three years I learned the basics, but I wasn’t very fanatical. Music lessons were just part of the fun. After that I liked it so much that I started practicing every day. Because the teacher saw that I liked it, I got private lessons, I could play in the best pop band in the music school. Then things will accelerate.’
Key moment three: her father – now a retired biologist and guitarist – gave her a compilation CD with solos by well-known jazz saxophonists. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley. ‘My father took me to the North Sea Jazz Festival. I had a very stimulating environment. I remember well that we were camping in France, I had brought my saxophone, and my father was playing Hit The Road Jack† He said: now you must solo. I didn’t know what to do, so he sang something to me and I played it over. I can still remember that solo to this day.’
The pop band was followed – we are now at key moment six – with her first jazz quartet, also from the music school. ‘In Nijmegen there is a really good jazz scene, a super fertile environment. It helps if your friends think it’s all cool too, then you keep going. There was a jam session in the pub every week, and the man who organized it invited a guest soloist every month. So, as a 14 or 15-year-old, I was suddenly playing with Benjamin Herman. I’ve often thought about that: that rashness, that I dared to do that. Even though I only played three notes, I just did it. Once I was at the conservatory, I became very critical of myself.’
Conservatory
At 17 she auditioned at the Utrecht Conservatory. ‘They said: ‘You do have talent, but we don’t think you are at the level yet to be accepted for the first year, so you can start with the preliminary training’. I found that disappointing. I really really wanted it and I just rudely called back and said: I will only come to Utrecht if you hire me for the first year. So they agreed to that. I was extremely motivated, I was always super early at school and took as many subjects as possible.
‘In retrospect, I think: if only I had listened, I would have had an extra year. Because after six months I had a conversation with my teacher, Marc Scholten. He said: you are doing well, but still not at the level for the first year. I was put in my place for a while, that was necessary. So I started studying even harder.’
During her studies she played in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NJJO), a big band composed of young top talent. And there too a key moment (lost count) took place. ‘I was captain of the saxophone section. We had a performance, a soloist was invited. Our conductor at the time, Martin Fondse, pointed to me, or at least I thought so – so he pointed to the soloist. But I immediately got up and started my solo. I quickly realized it, and knew: I just have to finish that solo, otherwise it will only get more embarrassing. I could have fallen through the ground. Afterwards I wanted to apologize to Fondse. He said, “Why, wasn’t this crazy?” That was a lesson: you have to dare to stand out, otherwise it won’t work anyway.’
Examples
So she succeeds, in a country that is already so rich in good saxophonists, both in jazz and classical music, in which Sprangers is also interested. Who does she see as her examples?
‘In the Netherlands alone there are so many people I look up to and from whom I can learn so much. I can’t do so much, technically challenging things. I try to study everything, especially difficult solos that are very far from my own style, very precisely. You have to think of it as words or expressions that you make your own and that you can always use when you need them, you never know when. You learn the tools to ultimately feel completely free when you improvise.
‘The pitfall is that you make certain music your own, that you start imitating things. There are solos that every saxophonist should have played, a collective source of knowledge. My teacher Toon Roos was always keen on this. When he heard me improvise, he would sometimes suddenly say: ‘Stop! You are now playing a lick’ (a calibrated musical pattern, ed.)† That made me aware that I always have to tell my own story.’
But who does Sprangers prefer to listen to? ‘The joke is that these are mainly tenor saxophonists, while I am not a tenor at all. I tried it twice, it just didn’t work. The baritone was already a complete fiasco. An instrument should resonate with what you have to say. The soprano sax can be very whispery and always sounds good to me. The alto can be anything: there is no typical alto sound. Maybe I’m trying to sound a bit like a tenor on an alto saxophone.’
The name Cannonball Adderley falls. Still an ‘alt’. But incomparable with Kika Sprangers. ‘He sounds like a bird! But also: bam, here I am. Straightforward, but so cheerful.’
More and more composer
She left the conservatory in 2016 with distinction. As her teacher had predicted, she would start her own ensembles to lead. She has a quintet and a large ensemble, made an album last year (No Man’s Land) with strings. Such a large line-up requires that she write out as many things as possible (’80 percent’), because when things get harmonically complex, she doesn’t want to leave too much to chance. So Sprangers is also increasingly becoming a composer.
‘At the conservatory I only had the subject of arranging, but I never really learned to compose. Through the New Makers trajectory (of the Performing Arts Fund, red.) I can still take those classes if I want to. The Rogier van Otterloo Award allows me to compose a piece for the Young Metropole Orchestra, which is great fun. I always wrote at the piano and entered the notes directly into the computer, now I am sitting at the table with such an A3 block of note paper. With such a computer program you immediately get a time signature and key and there is already a finish line. I feel much freer with just the paper.’
Her pieces are already being picked up by fellow saxophonists. Such as the 16-year-old student who approached Sprangers with the question whether she could perform one of her works for an exam. ‘I asked if she could make a video of that for me. It was so good! So nice to see, a real honour.’