The Waddensea Jazz Festival in Harlingen is making a new start after thirty years. With a fresh program full of renowned names, and the Northern jazz culture could use that.
The Hothouse Redbad Foundation is no longer doing anything, the Friejam Foundation is also silent. The lover of contemporary jazz in Friesland thus threatened to be confronted with an empty agenda, although there are still some nice initiatives elsewhere.
But luckily there is the Waddensea Jazz Festival. An enthusiastic Harlingers club is breathing new life into this festival after thirty years, but in a different way. Between 1983 and 1993 this was an institute that mainly focused on old style.
The restart, after 30 years, has a different character. The emphasis is now on more contemporary jazz and surroundings, which does not mean that it will become an inaccessible squeaky state – not that there is anything wrong with that. And it is still far from North Sea Jazz, even though the name still so clearly hints at it. It takes place in the Entrepot building in the harbour, with the Wadden Sea in the background.
With the necessary international accents
Friday evening will be kicked off modestly with three acts: the trio of the Portuguese guitarist Tiago Lageira who mixes fado and samba in his music, the quartet of the Italian pianist and singer Federica Lorusso and the internationally active quintet of saxophonist Loek van den Berg.
The main part of the program is completed on Saturday, with the necessary international accents. For example, double bassist Zack Lober comes from New York, although he has been living in Amsterdam for a while now. There he has gathered the trio No Filler (actually NO FILL3R) around him, with two young, talented women: trumpet player Suzan Veneman and drummer Sun -Mi Hong, actually from South Korea. Their beautiful debut album was produced by saxophonist Ben van Gelder, originally from Groningen.
The quintet of soprano saxophonist Kika Sprangers also has a Northern touch: drummer Willem Romers is from Leeuwarden. Kika Sprangers is also young and extremely talented, and takes a poetic, almost chamber music-like approach.
87 years old and not yet retired
The most important act this day is the trio of the (also on the Northern stages) almost ubiquitous saxophonist Benjamin Herman, double bassist Joris Teepe (who is also head of the jazz department of the Groningen Prince Claus Conservatory) and drummer John Engels: no less than 87 years old, but his blows still hit.
The program is completed with guitarist Peter Tiehuis and his T5, the Spoken Quartet of trumpeter (in the Amsterdam Klezmer Band, among others) Gijs Levelt and SoulShades, the band of singer Eline Gemerts with Frisian bassist Wytze van der Meer.
Wadden Sea Jazz Festival: Friday 2 and Saturday 3 June, Entrepotgebouw Harlingen