Route 2
Oranje Route

The New Dutch Jazz Quintet consists of five young jazz musicians from the Prins Claus Conservatory. Hard-bop and post-bop are the inspirations for the band. Their role models are greats like Hank Mobley and Wayne Shorter. The band has a varied colour palette and easily shifts between modern and ‘classic’ jazz music. The overall idea: It’s okay to swing!

The Skypainters was founded at the Groningen PCC by composer and guitarist Kirill Dumchenko in 2017. The style of the music may be described as a fusion of modern jazz and romantic classical music. Kirill himself calls it ‘impressionist jazz’. The Skypainters prefer an open sound, light-footed and flexible. Sometimes the music is reinforced by operatic singing, very much like Ennio Morricone’s film music.

photo: Julia Dumchenko

Bassist and bandleader Esat Ekincioglu plays his trumps with Turkish Pumpkin with a passionate duo of wind players. Koen Boeinga and Giuseppe Doronzo can rouse each other to intense climaxes. The pumpkin soup consists of a free groove from the Afro-Anatolian continent, while the band may improvise on wedding and funeral music from the near East. Both bassist Esat and saxophonist Giuseppe were trained at the PCC Groningen. Together they form the backbone of the successful Mediterranean AVA Trio. In Turkish Pumpkin we can hear a new generation of Dutch improvisers.

Violist and guitarist George Dumitriu from Bucharest has left his traces in Groningen. His combination of strings and live electronics is much appreciated in ensembles led by Alex Simu, Kaja Draksler and Eve Risser. His duo with vocalist Sanem Kalfa celebrates its 15th anniversary this summer, and also has its roots in the city of Groningen. Earlier this year, George Dumitriu presented his latest solo project at the Amsterdam Bimhuis: Monk on Viola, in which he takes Thelonious Monk’s music apart and puts it back together as an improviser. It’s an exciting exercise which you want to witness up close in Fransum.

The melodic approach in saxophonist Frans Vermeerssen’s new trio is reminiscent of All Ears, his successful quintet which operated in the late 1980s with New York trumpeter Herb Robertson and the recently deceased guitarist Piet Hoeksma. After this, Vermeerssen had a long and fruitful partnership with pianist Michiel Braam and he took Willem Breuker’s place for a final series of concerts of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. These days, the saxophonist is on the road without a chordal instrument. It offers him the freedom to emulate his love for great tenor players (Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk). This spring, the new Vermeerssen Trio released a CD: The Trail. ‘He takes us on a journey and tells us all kinds of stories along the way.’ (Herman te Loo, Jazzflits)

This is the first band Berlin drummer Christian Marien presents as a leader. He was looking for musicians with a great heart as well as great ears. And he has managed to bring people together who are able to discover and shape Marien’s compositions anew every single time. Sometimes the band sounds like Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time with Jasper Stadhouders in the role of James Blood Ulmer. And when Tobias Delius is in charge, the band’s timing sounds like Delius’s Quartet. In this company, bassist Antonio Borghini is an independent force. And the drummer? He has free rein – after all, it’s his band.

Garnwerd will once again feature a ZJFT tent as a central meeting point, with scrumptious food stalls. The tent also functions as a music stage during the daytime and for the final party in the evening. This year, it features Naked Ears, the jazz funk band of bassist Jasper de Beer, best known for his work with the Amsterdam Klezmer band. Co-led by guitarist/producer Gil Lopez, this eight piece outfit presents an exciting mix of funk grooves, P-funk, ska and Afro beat. The American singer/trombonist Joseph Bowie (Defunkt) will be featured as a special guest.

And extra: DJ Swoolish in the tent.