Articles by Joan Gannij
Frank van Berkel: New Programmer at Amsterdam's Bimhuis is Committed to Serve and to Curate
by Joan Gannij
Frank van Berkel, the new Programmer at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam's premier jazz club, is no stranger to the music world. He started out as a musician, double bass/bass guitar, and played many venues back in the '80s and '90s, including Amsterdam's rock palace Paradiso and the Bimhuis, with different bands, that included Nine Tobs, Remo Tobs, The Schismatics and the Berkel band. “I was a musician who started organizing and promoting concerts because making a living as a musician is ...
read moreCharles McPherson: The Man and His Muse
by Joan Gannij
Acclaimed alto saxophone wizard Charles McPherson has a new muse: his 25-year-old daughter Camille, a premier dancer with the San Diego Ballet, where he also serves as composer-in-residence these days. McPherson was a young father in his twenties, with three children from a first marriage. Thirty years up the road, after marrying the lovely Lynn, a classical piano teacher in jny: San Diego, he became the father of a daughter once again. “Thirty years, that's a big difference," he says, ...
read moreRamon Valle: The Amsterdam transplant remains rooted in Cuba
by Joan Gannij
After transplanting himself to Amsterdam 20 years ago, Ramon Valle's island roots still run deep. Valle was raised in the eastern part of Cuba, in Holguin, in a musical family, with a trumpeter father, a mother who sang and recited poems, and five sisters; four who played piano, and another who was a multi-instumentalist, playing saxophone, clarinet and flute.. He started studying piano and trumpet at age seven, under the tutelage of his father, and muses. “I was playing the ...
read moreLouis Hayes: Still Moving Straight Ahead
by Joan Gannij
Louis Hayes will turn 80 on May 31 (2017), but the party is still goin' hearty. He started celebrating this milestone back in February with an 18-day tour that began in Barcelona and concluded in jny: Amsterdam. It was mostly one-nighters with three nights in jny: Athens, two in jny: Paris and jny: London appearances at the usual places, like Fasching in jny: Stockholm, the Sunset Club and Ronnie Scott's. I caught the jny: Detroit native during his final concert ...
read moreNorth Sea Jazz Festival Recap: A Moveable, Musical Feast
by Joan Gannij
North Sea Jazz Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands July 10-12, 2015 Three days immersed in sounds and sensations. Followed by two days at home in zombie mode, zen silence. Rather than do an exhausting commute from jny: Amsterdam to jny: Rotterdam each day (by train or auto (50 miles / 75 kilometers each way), I opted to stay at a B&B in Delft, one of the oldest towns in The Netherlands, and the de facto capital back ...
read moreNorth Sea Jazz Festival 2015: The Roller Coaster Has Taken Off
by Joan Gannij
Jan Willem Luyken, Director of the North Sea Jazz Festival, has a lot to celebrate this year. It is not only the 40th anniversary of the popular festival, it's also the tenth anniversary of their move from jny: the Hague to jny: Rotterdam, and the year that Luyken became director. Described as “the world's largest indoor music festival," it attracts an international public of 75,000 during the music-packed weekend in mid-July at the Ahoy Rotterdam Arena complex. No ...
read moreJohn Engels: Looking Back, Moving Forward
by Joan Gannij
Drummer John Engels has the energy of two forty-year olds, which is pretty impressive, since he will soon be turning 80. He will celebrate this auspicious occasion with the Vogel Vrij (Free as a Bird) tour, a series of concerts at diverse venues throughout jny: the Netherlands (with saxophonists Benny Golson and Benjamin Herman) which began in April and continues through October. A book was also recently published in Dutch: Hé Vogel, Wanneer Spelen We Weer?: Het Muzikale Leven van ...
read moreBen Sidran: The First Existential Jazz Rapper
by Joan Gannij
Ben Sidran is an old school hipster in the authentic sense of the word. He's a no frills, musician's musician who's got the heart, got the chops. He's been there, done that, and ready to do more. Sidran has never been interested in following trends or squeezing into categories and is not about to start now. “In jazz, they want you to be yourself, but they only want you to be yourself in their category, and if you're not, it ...
read moreBimhuis at 40: Older, Better, Business as Usual
by Joan Gannij
The Bimhuis is turning 40 and is still very much in its prime. Beginning October 1, jny: Amsterdam's venerable jazz club will celebrate this milestone with a variety of concerts, activities and special events. The Bimhuis opened in 1974 after a lengthy search for a suitable venue for improvising musicians. Over the next decades it would become the most important jazz institution in the jny: Netherlands, not only as a venue but also as a crossroads for the leading performers ...
read moreNat Adderley: A Player's Player
by Joan Gannij
This interview was originally conducted in 1997. I met Nat Adderley in jny: San Diego, California in 1986 when I was working as a disc jockey at a jazz radio station and doing the PR for La Jolla Playhouse. We did an interview about a new production of a musical being revived at the progressive La Jolla Playhouse and premiered on Broadway later that year. “Shout Up a Morning," based on the folk hero John Henry, began as ...
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