DJazz .OrgOnite

Biography

“DJazz” started in 1998 in Zwolle (The Netherlands) when Roelant Hollander and DJ Phaze (Olivier Schreuder) got together to make some Jazz-Hop grooves – inspired by Jazz-hop Projects such as “Jazzmatazz“ (by Guru), Miles Davis‘ “Doo Bop” album, “Buckshot LeFonque” (by Brandford Marsalis) and “Urbanator” (by Michał Urbaniak).

The first live formation (in 2000) featured besides Roelant Hollander (sax, beat creator) and DJ Phaze (turntables): Alexander Hartgers (trumpet), Johan Schipper (Fender Rhodes), Rutger Renden (bass) and Roy Kieftenbelt (percussion).

The project stopped to exist when Roelant Hollander Immigrated to Bulgaria.

DJazz was revived again at the end of September 2007, specially for the first electronic music (mini) festival of Trip-BeatMiks (an underground electronic music organization founded by Dimitar “VPD” Kalinov and Roelant Hollander) at Comics Club (Varna). The members of the formation were: DJ Emotion and DJ Ivo-but-not (turntables), Chavdar Gochev (guitar) and Roelant Hollander (saxophones, beat creator). After that performance the project pauzed again, due to the lack of time and the individual goals of its members.

In 2008 and 2009 Roelant Hollander participated in the Jazzprofilactika project of DJ Emotion, DJ Jijo and DJ Ivo-but-not. This pleasant experience made them decide to revive the DJazz project once again in 2010, DJazz became a “JazzProfilactika Studio Project”. This time with the following musicians and DJ’s: Roelant Hollander (saxes, beat creator / composer / arranger), Miroslav Petkov (trumpet), DJ Emotion & DJ Jijo (turntablizm) and Ivan “Tochka” Boyadzhiev (studio engineer – the “ears” of the project). Composing new tracks, re-editing some old pieces from ‘98 and creation of various remixes started again.

On 06.07 2012 the first single named “Ain’t So Blue” – containing an instrumental and vocal version of the piece “Ain’t So Blue Blues” – was released.

On 22.01 2015 the EP called “Summertime in Bombay” – containing two originals and 3 remixes – was released.

Ivan “Tochka” Boyadzhiev – the studio engineer of the project – and close friend of all crew members passed away on 16.06.2015 †. After Tochka’s passing the project came to a hold for a while and before we had been able to pick up where it all stopped the studio (owned by Tochka before his passing) closed.

In January 2020 Roelant Hollander moved back to The Netherlands and pulled the DJazz archive up to see what could be done with some of the unfinished work. During 2020 he worked on 5 tracks (there are 4 more in the archive that would require more work then those 5).