November 24, 2011
Americaaaaaaa here we come!
After two tours with my acoustic trio Fugimundi and a few a la carte gigs in the US (Dave Douglas’s Festival of New Trumpet Music, and John Zorn’s Stone with Florian Weber and Ziv Ravitz) I get to go back with Gatecrash for five performances - and I’m curious to find out how American audiences will respond.
12-10 Yoshi’s in Oakland, California 13-10 Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico 16-10 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, Washington 20-10 Blues Alley in Washington, DC 23-10 DROM in New York City
So five concerts might not be a lot - but unless your name is Prince or Madonna, you still have to invest in a career and that takes time (though it probably did for them as well !). All the venues though are top locations, so we decided to go ahead - because it’s exposure, previews, reviews, radio interviews and we can make new contacts as well as renew old acquaintances. Plus we’re going to Canada in June 2012 for the festivals there and the USA is ‘around the corner’ - or rather, South of the Border.
There were just a few days between our Asia tour and our America tour. The evening before we flew to San Francisco, I was asked to appear in Matthijs van Nieuwkerk’s “DWDD” show to perform some music from my new album “Live at the Concertgebouw”. It’s always a good opportunity because that program has more than a million viewers each weeknight. But the downside is you only get one minute of music to play - so I decided on “Lex” - a piece I wrote for Udo Prinsen’s animation “Audition” which in turn is based on a true story of a trumpet player who survived Auschwitz thanks to his talent on the trumpet. We were lucky to also be able to show visuals from the animation. I’m happy with “Lex” if I say so myself because it’s a simple, haunting melody that says what it needs to say - in one minute. I was pleased to get some very warm reactions - including from the widow of Lex van Weren, the trumpet player to whom the piece was dedicated.
So now the music is really out of my hands and - out there.
October 11th
The next morning at daybreak we were headed to the airport and off to San Francisco, where, as the stewardess remarked, we could do the entire day all over again. The flight was fine and by noon we’d arrived and had picked up an enormous American van and eaten our first gigantic American lunch....and drove into San Francisco to see the sights. I’d been to San Francisco before and it was nice to have my colleagues experience the lovely city from the pier where you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. We had another drink and tried to make the day last as long as possible - to enjoy the evening and to beat the jet lag.
I am always astonished by America, the gobs of greasy junk food but also the good side - the directness, openess, friendliness of the people. When they feel something, they just say so. And they sure said so about my pink trousers !
It’s so easy to forget that good side (at least for me) when you think about the politics in the country and how the immigration service behaves - the time consuming and complicated procedure just to get a work permit - and the exorbitant cost. Why bother ? I suppose that’s the idea... But of course the situation in the Netherlands is also dire - difficulties for the arts, for health care, for social services. It seems as everything in the public arena is getting harder and colder.
But what can you do? Just be yourself en play your ass off. I just try to keep doing what I do and play for people’s hearts - that’s my thing. And I am lucky to have found my thing - the key to my being, and my happiness. Then it’s easier to deal with obstacles on the way.
And so it was with Yoshi’s.
October 12th
I was happy to be reinvited to Oakland, where Peter Williams had booked me for the third time - the first time I recorded my “Live at Yoshi’s” album with Fugimundi, and the second time we could come back and present the album at the place where it all happened. Both times we had a nice sized audience. But not this time - not even a quarter of the hall was filled and the audience seemed rather dull. We were given a marvelous Japanese meal and did our best on stage - what else can we do ? Afterwards it turned out that they really liked the concert and bought quite a few cd’s.
The club manager told us that October was a difficult month and Wednesday a bad day - but still. It was a reality check for me - and I had to realize that American is a big country, a new country and there are dues to be paid. (And let us not forget the economy ! People will think twice now about going out to a jazz club for a band they’ve hardly heard of).
l had to think of a story that Dusko Goycovitch, my former teacher, told me. There was a Swedish trumpet player who had a lot of success in his own country. He decided to go to New York to really make the big time there. He threw a fabulous going away party and headed off to glory. When Dusko went to New York a few months later, he ran into this guy, totally penniless in a ratty hotel room. He couldn’t pay for it, and the owner of the hotel had taken his trumpet as collateral against the debt. The man was at his wit’s end.
What had happened ?
He’d had a few gigs the first weeks, but they slowly became less and less and he went into a downwards spiral.. I don’t know how the story really ends, but Dusko paid the bill and got the man’s trumpet back for him.
After the Yoshi’s gig we went to bed early because this would be te hardest day of the tour - the next morning’s flight was at 08.30 am to Albuquerque, and a gig that night. Which means 5.15 am lobbytime.
It was a nice flight - looking out the window you can see how the desert becomes green at the edges of the river - and realize just how enormous this country is.
Tom Guralnick, who runs the Outpost, was there to fetch us at arrival and as we drove through Albuquerque we felt as if we were in a road movie. What a town ! Space, more space, low lying buildings and the air smelled good. We went straight to the club to check out the backline which was all A-OK. Wow ! That doesn’t happen everywhere - especially for an electric band (and our voltage is 220 instead of 110).
It’s also good to see how a club like this is run - above the stage there are posters of the sponsors, and the first row was reserved for the record company who underwrote the concert. All the sponsors are named in the introduction, as well as the art exhibition on show. There was a table for cd’s and a volunteer to sell them. (She ended up selling 36 of our cd’s that night !) Everything has been taken into consideration. And there was a lady, Riha, who cooked for us. And how !!! Delicious and healthy. She even made a special menu card for us.
In the pop world it’s par for the course to have a meal cooked for you, but not in the jazz world. In foreign countries though you are often invited for a meal, but Holland is a bit stingy on that score.
And speaking of stingy : Holland is going in the direction of America as far as leaving arts support to private and corporate sponsorship, but we just aren’t there yet. I’ve spent thousands of euro’s hese last few years looking for sponsors, or rather paying people to find sponsors for me. Perhaps I hired the wrong people, perhaps it’s just extremely difficult in these days and times.
Travelling as much as I do with my bands is a costly endeavor, but it’s part of the deal if I want to make music all over the world and not just stay put in Holland. I do get travel support on occasion from the Fonds voor Podiumkunsten, but their budget will also be slashed as will many cultural programs and institutions. It seems so short sighted - especially since the arts actually feed money into the system rather than just slurp it up. But the right wing has decided that the arts are a ‘leftist hobby” and not a basic necessity for a healthy society. Back to Albuquerque ! We had a very full venue and an extremely friendly and receptive audience. Like trumpet legend Louis Smith came to my concert in Ann Arbor two years ago, now Bobby Shew came along to the Outpost. Bobby is like a deity for trumpet players, famous on the LA studio scene, the big bands and as a soloist. His specialty is the high notes. I had met him in the Netherlands where he had given some trumpet clnics. Now he’s retired and moved back to where he came from - New Mexico. It was such an honor to have him at the performance.
October 14th
Today we have a day off ! We prefer to be playing, but that’s just the way it is. Up way too early (jet lag still) but the time difference with Europe means I can get my coffee, do my yoga, get some mails out and still have the day ahead of me. Americans get up early and coffee is brewed early as well.
In the hotels the first huge coffee cans are set out at 5 am but that is American coffee and that is really just not on. So it’s Starbucks for a cappucino...
An e-mail from Bobby Shew really made my day : Congratulations ! he wrote - you have arrived ! Wow, that’s a feather in my cap (in Holland we would say it’s a feather in my...rear)
I asked him if he would get the word out about my tour and he replied enthusiastically hat he new a bunch of trumpet players in Seattle and would mail them all about my performance there. Nice to have a network like that.
Later we rented a car, piled in, and Gatecrash drove off to spend the day in Santa Fe. It’s always fun to be with that band. We made a very nice band photo in the desert and the trip was a pleasant and very scenic one at that. Santa Fe is a charming little town - there are many Indians in the Central Plaza selling their wares in the little shops - lovely stones and jewelry and self-made clothes and sexy leather cowboy boots.
We stopped on the way back at a supermarket where a nice lady with Indian blood started chatting away to us. I get such a kick out of the ease with which people make contact and communicate in this country. You can start a conversation with anyone and it usually is pleasant and direct. Cheers me up !
Suddenly I can see Americans in general in a different light. O always thought that they were very superficial. One minute very connected and social and the next minute they don’t know who you are. But now I notice that it’s much more nuanced than that. Good experience.
The major teachers in spirituality that I’ve had the privilege to be confronted with - such as Eckhart Tolle - speak about the power of NOW. Don’t think about later, about someday, when I have this or that, or lots of money, then I will be happy. If you think like that you’re always running late. And if you get what it is you think you want, you’re on to the next item on your wish list.
But that’s not what I’m getting at.
Despite the ultimate consumer society -it’s about what happens when you meet a person the interaction - what happens then in real time. In general, Americans are really nice, without prejudice, almost childlike. That’s what I learned fro the Dalai Lama.
We enjoyed the moment with friendliness, and then we went on our way. A way further there’s another “boat” of unexpected meetings along the river of life. It touches me, and in my sloppy manner of expression - it doubles or even triples my happiness factor, and keeps a smile on my face.
But then this is also the land where a Republican candidate for President, Rick Perry from Texas (where else) wants to destroy everything that President Obama as fought for and accomplished, such as digging for oil in Alaska, turning back the CO2 agreement, getting the government signed on for fundamentalist bible-thumping. Haven’t we learned anything ?
We got back to the hotel exhausted. Seven pm is way past midnight for us. But we did go out and try to enjoy the nightlife of Albuquerque - not much there in the square - very square mile - with lots of bars and lots of very fat people. Not my thing.
The next day - email and yoga - and a flight via Salt Lake City to Seattle. So far so good with too heavy cabin baggage. Even here, where you are asked to only bring one piece into the cabin, I got away with it. Problem is, Americans now take way too much as cabin baggage to avoid paying $ 25 per suitcase - which in the good old days was free. So everyone is stuffing all sorts of items in the overhead and ‘under the seat in front of you” and flights are delayed because people are still busy stuffing their suitcases in places where it won’t fit - so you get delays and lots of irritation and that costs so much more than the revenue from the checked bags.
What a country ! 75 minutes from Albuquerque to SLC, and another 75 minutes from there - we saw nothing but desert and mountains. Too bad we don’t have more time to explore on the ground - there are many nature reserves and national parks here...some day !
We got to Seattle and were met by Larry with a great porkpie hat on his head. He brought us to the pleasant old-fashioned Queen Anne hotel and took us out to dinner. Yay ! Not bad considering that the fees and the hospitality in the US are often...eh...rather stingy.
Larry was a fun guy, and we learned a lot from him. Seems that he had made it in America : worked hard, earned enough to retire at 52 and now able to enjoy life and help out as a volunteer for a jazz festival !
Working hard in American means - working HARD !
Next day : our concert ! Our agent Susanna arrived (she would have been with us earlier, but she’s also looking after the magnificent ICP orchestra which was also touring) Nice to have her aboard so I don’t have to deal with the logistics on tour, and - well - we like her.
Earshot Jazz is a festival that lasts several weeks - a few years ago I was here with my Fugimundi trio, and we played at Tully’s - which is a club with a bar. This time I was upgraded to the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) which is a posh venue with a great acoustic. It was the best concert we’d played on our US tour so far, the roof almost blew off and we sold quite a few cd’s. Trumpet player Chad McCullough and John Bishop, both from the Origin record label, came along, as did Alison Loerke, our North American agent. It was good to have Alison there, so we can evaluate and strategize for the future. We hung out at a nearby bar for a while, but later on wanted to buy a bottle of wine to drink at the hotel – you know how it is on the road, after a concert, some jetlag and some friends. So we went to an all-night supermarket to get some party items – chips, peanuts, and a bottle of wine. The cashier let us pay for everything but put the bottle of wine aside. “I cannot sell this to you” “Why ?” (were we THAT tipsy ?) “Because it is after 2 am and it’s against the law to sell wine or beer after 2 am”
Wow ! That was irritating – to be treated like a child, at my age…pfffffffffff. But in retrospect, eh, we didn;’t really need to be drinking another bottle of wine at that time of night, and were grateful the next morning for a ‘blessing in disguise’.
Another alcohol story : during dinner in Albuquerque the waiter asked for our ID”s because we’d ordered beer. Even if you have a long grey beard they still will “card” you if you order alcohol. In other parts of the US you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays, or in ‘dry’ counties you can’t buy it at all. What a country !
But I am happy to have an American agent – not only because it’s good to have someone closer to the ground, but also to help with the work permits. The visa procedure for artists has gotten more complicated and time consuming (and money consuming !). Having an American agent on the application makes it just a bit easier. Yet even for this Gatecrash tour, it took months and months to get the so-called “Notice of Action”, and then of course the personal interview at the Consulate in Amsterdam, and the cost involved for all that…
Funny that American musicians can come to Europe without work permits and play as much as they like.
Anyway, the next day Chad picked me up to show me Seattle. I learned a lot – it’s fun to tour the USA, but if you are a musician living here and trying to make a living from music it’s quite different. Americans have to work very hard. Even with a 40 hour workweek some people can’t make enough to pay their rent and need to get by on food stamps.
Chad lives in Seattle and has a job with the record label Origin and is designer as well. His wife also has a good job so they can get by. He tells me that if you live in Seattle, then the closest city to get a gig in is Portland and that is a 3 hour drive. Then there’s Denver (a 10 hour drive) and if you want to play in the Bay area like San Francisco or Oakland, it’s a 26 hour drive. Otherwise you have to fly and that is an expensive option. And if you’re not well known yet then you can never earn the travel costs from the fees. So if you aren’t nationally famous, you’re stuck playing gigs in your own town.
It’s not easy now in Europe either, but lots better than in the States. In Holland everything is close by and you can get over the border to Germany, Belgium or France relatively quickly.
Seattle is a lovely city where a European like me can feel at home fast. It’s not built with too many ‘blocks’ and there are a lot of parks. It’s great to be shown around by a native – we drove a bit and went to the fish market. It’s famous because the fishmongers throw fish at each other from a far distance…
We had lunch in the fish restaurant and I do believe the fat came out of my ears, so much crème fraiche. I am slowly getting enough of it and have to look at my belly with some trepidation. Oooweeee. What will the scales say back home…
Everything is fat, or sugar, and in huge amounts. Gobs of butter on the cauliflower and the chai tea is so sweet your fillings pop.
Chad told me about the corn syrup industry – the farmers in the Midwest have way too much corn and it’s being subsidized by the federal government. That’s why the entire country is being overwhelmed by corn syrup, it’s in everything they eat. And it’s empty calories, which is why you’re hungry again after eating a hamburger – thank heavens this overdose of corn syrup is forbidden in Europe.
I also heard about Prohibition from 1918 – 1932. That was supposed to be good for the general health of the population, and had a moral component to it as well. The truth was that the farmers had figured out how to make a mixture of methanol to use for fuel for their tractors. The oil industry felt so threatened by that that they orchestrated a complete ban on any alcohol whatsoever.
In the neighborhood of Seattle the oil and rubber industry bought up a very long train track – and destroyed it immediately afterwards. Why ? Because rail travel was bad for the oil and rubber industry…the companies were sued for conspiracy and indeed, were convicted. The fine ? One dollar.
And as to the health ‘industry’ in the USA, well…let’s not even go there.
Amazing stories. But even more amazing to me is what is happening in the Netherlands now. We are following the USA in capitalism and privatization. Willful destruction of the whole support system for older people and handicapped people. Indeed, you shouldn’t have let yourself be handicapped. A real scandal.
Let’s get back to the tour. Right now we are flying from Seattle to Washington DC. Five hours flying time and we’ll arrive at 10 pm and tomorrow we play in the famous Blues Alley. It’s a mainstream club with cocktails and dinner, and we ought to play at least one standard – I don’t mind. It’s now what you play, but how you play it. It’s an invitation to connect with people, to win their hearts and souls.
That’s what I play for, and fulfilling your own heart’s energy, that reaches further than consciousness. Taking the audience with you on an adventure. EN if I know I can reach them by playing a tune they know, then I’ll do that – the challenge is to play it so that you aren’t compromising your won musical integrity. It has to fit in your own world. Otherwise you’re just pretending.
At Yoshi’s we played ‘Sometimes it Snows in April’ but that didn’t really work. Maybe because it’s more like a guitar song, and maybe because the jazz audience didn’t know it. If they do know it you can feel that sigh go through the hall. I think tomorrow we’ll play “Over the Rainbow”. Everyone knows that oen from the Wizard of Oz.
The next day was a day off. Because I’ve already reached 5000 friends on Facebook, Jasper helped me make up a new page where I can reach an unlimited amount of friends. I’m not such a computer nerd and don’t have the patience for it. Jasper and Gulli mind the Gatecrash page on Facebook and I’m really grateful. We live in an age where social networking is essential, especially for an artist.
If you’re busy like that sometimes you aren’t practicing the trumpet or checking your other mail – life on the road, even on a day off !
OK ! Blues Alley ! A famous club that all the major jazz artists have played. So I think I ought to play there too…ten years ago I never would have dreamt this. Four o’clock : soundcheck. They hadn’t really read the rider and didn’t notice that we need a transformer to get the voltage from 110 to 220…after a few hours the problem was solved.
Blues Alley is a mainstream club, where you can eat and drink. And it’s in a town where people have heard and seen a lot and people can be blasé. So to get a Fender Rhodes we had to pay$ 390. It can get worse, I’ve heard of clubs that already have a drum set that you have to rent and that gets taken off the fee. This happens in New York – but to be honest, it happens in Paris too.
It can be hard to garner an audience – like in all big cities. I’ve heard that even jazz icons like Lee Konitz can have a hard time getting a full hall.
So ! two sets for two different audiences – we had 65 people the first set, and another 15 the second. It’s normal that the second set has less people, but I did have to swallow hard. It made me think of my first gig in Enschede with my own band…playing for 3 people –
But Gatecrash is “Great Crash” (ha ha, I wish it were Great Cash) – despite it all we played our hearts out with two encores, Jasper almost ruined the drum set, and everyone who stayed on had a good time. But I noticed this the next morning, exhausted. This is a lesson I need to learn as well – pacing.
Next morning up really early and taking the Acela to New York. A train ride that takes 3 hours and costs $ 162. There is WiFi but the train is so rollicking that you can’t type. A country that doesn’t care enough about its trains. Yes indeed – the oil companies have had their way !
As soon as we get to NYC I meet up with Jan Louter, who is making a documentary about me and my music. Jan has been a fan since I played Paul van Brugge’s music for his film “A Sad Flower in the Sand”
Because I’m playing abroad more and more , and New York is the last day of the tour, Jan wanted to do some extra shots and recording in New York. So he had me in a taxi going over the Brooklyn Bridge toward Manhattan, and another scene where I’m looking out of the hotel room onto Ground Zero. He also interviewed the Gatecrashers….wonder what they said about me, ha ha.
There’s always something beautiful and exciting happening in this city, and it was a nice present that my big hero Kenny Wheeler was playing that night at the Jazz Standard, the club where my birthday mate Dave Douglas organizes his FONT festival every year, the Festival of New Trumpet Music. Two years ago I played that festival with Ingrid Jensen and Tim Hagens for a Woody Shaw evening.
There was a real big band scrunched onto a small stage in a club that can hold maybe 150 people, max. This too is New York. All over the city there are venues where the most amazing performances are done for a relatively small audience. And everything that happens here is ‘outstanding’. Three sets in one evening, so you have about 450 people all together and that is if you sell out. A big band has about 19 people, so you can figure out that they each just get a handful of dollars for the entire night. This too is New York.
Many concerts are “door gigs” and the competition is intense, so of course people earn very little. Musicians, even the famous ones, that live in big cities like New York don’t earn their money in the cities they live in, but at the festivals – usually the European festivals. They play in the clubs to get the exposure – and that, to be honest, is also why I’m here. As Eartha Kitt said “Every performance is an audition for the next”. You never know who’s going to be in the audience. New York is the place to be and the players on the scene keep an eye on who’s playing where.
The next day is our gig at Drom, a club on Avenue A on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that books jazz, pop and world music. A really great club ! An excellent sound engineer and really nice people. That is such a blessing, especially when you realize how hard Americans have to work to keep their head above water. Many people have two or three jobs and that can take a toll on their attitude and state of mind.
There weren’t that many people, but it was a good audience and we played our hearts out. The roof went oof the club ! Funny, it doesn’t really matter whether the club was full. I was so proud of Gatecrash when I stepped off the stage. We told our story the way we wanted to and did it in New York.
Thanks America for having us over, and see you next time !
dd. 14/11/2011
12-10 Yoshi’s in Oakland, California 13-10 Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico 16-10 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, Washington 20-10 Blues Alley in Washington, DC 23-10 DROM in New York City
So five concerts might not be a lot - but unless your name is Prince or Madonna, you still have to invest in a career and that takes time (though it probably did for them as well !). All the venues though are top locations, so we decided to go ahead - because it’s exposure, previews, reviews, radio interviews and we can make new contacts as well as renew old acquaintances. Plus we’re going to Canada in June 2012 for the festivals there and the USA is ‘around the corner’ - or rather, South of the Border.
There were just a few days between our Asia tour and our America tour. The evening before we flew to San Francisco, I was asked to appear in Matthijs van Nieuwkerk’s “DWDD” show to perform some music from my new album “Live at the Concertgebouw”. It’s always a good opportunity because that program has more than a million viewers each weeknight. But the downside is you only get one minute of music to play - so I decided on “Lex” - a piece I wrote for Udo Prinsen’s animation “Audition” which in turn is based on a true story of a trumpet player who survived Auschwitz thanks to his talent on the trumpet. We were lucky to also be able to show visuals from the animation. I’m happy with “Lex” if I say so myself because it’s a simple, haunting melody that says what it needs to say - in one minute. I was pleased to get some very warm reactions - including from the widow of Lex van Weren, the trumpet player to whom the piece was dedicated.
So now the music is really out of my hands and - out there.
October 11th
The next morning at daybreak we were headed to the airport and off to San Francisco, where, as the stewardess remarked, we could do the entire day all over again. The flight was fine and by noon we’d arrived and had picked up an enormous American van and eaten our first gigantic American lunch....and drove into San Francisco to see the sights. I’d been to San Francisco before and it was nice to have my colleagues experience the lovely city from the pier where you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. We had another drink and tried to make the day last as long as possible - to enjoy the evening and to beat the jet lag.
I am always astonished by America, the gobs of greasy junk food but also the good side - the directness, openess, friendliness of the people. When they feel something, they just say so. And they sure said so about my pink trousers !
It’s so easy to forget that good side (at least for me) when you think about the politics in the country and how the immigration service behaves - the time consuming and complicated procedure just to get a work permit - and the exorbitant cost. Why bother ? I suppose that’s the idea... But of course the situation in the Netherlands is also dire - difficulties for the arts, for health care, for social services. It seems as everything in the public arena is getting harder and colder.
But what can you do? Just be yourself en play your ass off. I just try to keep doing what I do and play for people’s hearts - that’s my thing. And I am lucky to have found my thing - the key to my being, and my happiness. Then it’s easier to deal with obstacles on the way.
And so it was with Yoshi’s.
October 12th
I was happy to be reinvited to Oakland, where Peter Williams had booked me for the third time - the first time I recorded my “Live at Yoshi’s” album with Fugimundi, and the second time we could come back and present the album at the place where it all happened. Both times we had a nice sized audience. But not this time - not even a quarter of the hall was filled and the audience seemed rather dull. We were given a marvelous Japanese meal and did our best on stage - what else can we do ? Afterwards it turned out that they really liked the concert and bought quite a few cd’s.
The club manager told us that October was a difficult month and Wednesday a bad day - but still. It was a reality check for me - and I had to realize that American is a big country, a new country and there are dues to be paid. (And let us not forget the economy ! People will think twice now about going out to a jazz club for a band they’ve hardly heard of).
l had to think of a story that Dusko Goycovitch, my former teacher, told me. There was a Swedish trumpet player who had a lot of success in his own country. He decided to go to New York to really make the big time there. He threw a fabulous going away party and headed off to glory. When Dusko went to New York a few months later, he ran into this guy, totally penniless in a ratty hotel room. He couldn’t pay for it, and the owner of the hotel had taken his trumpet as collateral against the debt. The man was at his wit’s end.
What had happened ?
He’d had a few gigs the first weeks, but they slowly became less and less and he went into a downwards spiral.. I don’t know how the story really ends, but Dusko paid the bill and got the man’s trumpet back for him.
After the Yoshi’s gig we went to bed early because this would be te hardest day of the tour - the next morning’s flight was at 08.30 am to Albuquerque, and a gig that night. Which means 5.15 am lobbytime.
It was a nice flight - looking out the window you can see how the desert becomes green at the edges of the river - and realize just how enormous this country is.
Tom Guralnick, who runs the Outpost, was there to fetch us at arrival and as we drove through Albuquerque we felt as if we were in a road movie. What a town ! Space, more space, low lying buildings and the air smelled good. We went straight to the club to check out the backline which was all A-OK. Wow ! That doesn’t happen everywhere - especially for an electric band (and our voltage is 220 instead of 110).
It’s also good to see how a club like this is run - above the stage there are posters of the sponsors, and the first row was reserved for the record company who underwrote the concert. All the sponsors are named in the introduction, as well as the art exhibition on show. There was a table for cd’s and a volunteer to sell them. (She ended up selling 36 of our cd’s that night !) Everything has been taken into consideration. And there was a lady, Riha, who cooked for us. And how !!! Delicious and healthy. She even made a special menu card for us.
In the pop world it’s par for the course to have a meal cooked for you, but not in the jazz world. In foreign countries though you are often invited for a meal, but Holland is a bit stingy on that score.
And speaking of stingy : Holland is going in the direction of America as far as leaving arts support to private and corporate sponsorship, but we just aren’t there yet. I’ve spent thousands of euro’s hese last few years looking for sponsors, or rather paying people to find sponsors for me. Perhaps I hired the wrong people, perhaps it’s just extremely difficult in these days and times.
Travelling as much as I do with my bands is a costly endeavor, but it’s part of the deal if I want to make music all over the world and not just stay put in Holland. I do get travel support on occasion from the Fonds voor Podiumkunsten, but their budget will also be slashed as will many cultural programs and institutions. It seems so short sighted - especially since the arts actually feed money into the system rather than just slurp it up. But the right wing has decided that the arts are a ‘leftist hobby” and not a basic necessity for a healthy society. Back to Albuquerque ! We had a very full venue and an extremely friendly and receptive audience. Like trumpet legend Louis Smith came to my concert in Ann Arbor two years ago, now Bobby Shew came along to the Outpost. Bobby is like a deity for trumpet players, famous on the LA studio scene, the big bands and as a soloist. His specialty is the high notes. I had met him in the Netherlands where he had given some trumpet clnics. Now he’s retired and moved back to where he came from - New Mexico. It was such an honor to have him at the performance.
October 14th
Today we have a day off ! We prefer to be playing, but that’s just the way it is. Up way too early (jet lag still) but the time difference with Europe means I can get my coffee, do my yoga, get some mails out and still have the day ahead of me. Americans get up early and coffee is brewed early as well.
In the hotels the first huge coffee cans are set out at 5 am but that is American coffee and that is really just not on. So it’s Starbucks for a cappucino...
An e-mail from Bobby Shew really made my day : Congratulations ! he wrote - you have arrived ! Wow, that’s a feather in my cap (in Holland we would say it’s a feather in my...rear)
I asked him if he would get the word out about my tour and he replied enthusiastically hat he new a bunch of trumpet players in Seattle and would mail them all about my performance there. Nice to have a network like that.
Later we rented a car, piled in, and Gatecrash drove off to spend the day in Santa Fe. It’s always fun to be with that band. We made a very nice band photo in the desert and the trip was a pleasant and very scenic one at that. Santa Fe is a charming little town - there are many Indians in the Central Plaza selling their wares in the little shops - lovely stones and jewelry and self-made clothes and sexy leather cowboy boots.
We stopped on the way back at a supermarket where a nice lady with Indian blood started chatting away to us. I get such a kick out of the ease with which people make contact and communicate in this country. You can start a conversation with anyone and it usually is pleasant and direct. Cheers me up !
Suddenly I can see Americans in general in a different light. O always thought that they were very superficial. One minute very connected and social and the next minute they don’t know who you are. But now I notice that it’s much more nuanced than that. Good experience.
The major teachers in spirituality that I’ve had the privilege to be confronted with - such as Eckhart Tolle - speak about the power of NOW. Don’t think about later, about someday, when I have this or that, or lots of money, then I will be happy. If you think like that you’re always running late. And if you get what it is you think you want, you’re on to the next item on your wish list.
But that’s not what I’m getting at.
Despite the ultimate consumer society -it’s about what happens when you meet a person the interaction - what happens then in real time. In general, Americans are really nice, without prejudice, almost childlike. That’s what I learned fro the Dalai Lama.
We enjoyed the moment with friendliness, and then we went on our way. A way further there’s another “boat” of unexpected meetings along the river of life. It touches me, and in my sloppy manner of expression - it doubles or even triples my happiness factor, and keeps a smile on my face.
But then this is also the land where a Republican candidate for President, Rick Perry from Texas (where else) wants to destroy everything that President Obama as fought for and accomplished, such as digging for oil in Alaska, turning back the CO2 agreement, getting the government signed on for fundamentalist bible-thumping. Haven’t we learned anything ?
We got back to the hotel exhausted. Seven pm is way past midnight for us. But we did go out and try to enjoy the nightlife of Albuquerque - not much there in the square - very square mile - with lots of bars and lots of very fat people. Not my thing.
The next day - email and yoga - and a flight via Salt Lake City to Seattle. So far so good with too heavy cabin baggage. Even here, where you are asked to only bring one piece into the cabin, I got away with it. Problem is, Americans now take way too much as cabin baggage to avoid paying $ 25 per suitcase - which in the good old days was free. So everyone is stuffing all sorts of items in the overhead and ‘under the seat in front of you” and flights are delayed because people are still busy stuffing their suitcases in places where it won’t fit - so you get delays and lots of irritation and that costs so much more than the revenue from the checked bags.
What a country ! 75 minutes from Albuquerque to SLC, and another 75 minutes from there - we saw nothing but desert and mountains. Too bad we don’t have more time to explore on the ground - there are many nature reserves and national parks here...some day !
We got to Seattle and were met by Larry with a great porkpie hat on his head. He brought us to the pleasant old-fashioned Queen Anne hotel and took us out to dinner. Yay ! Not bad considering that the fees and the hospitality in the US are often...eh...rather stingy.
Larry was a fun guy, and we learned a lot from him. Seems that he had made it in America : worked hard, earned enough to retire at 52 and now able to enjoy life and help out as a volunteer for a jazz festival !
Working hard in American means - working HARD !
Next day : our concert ! Our agent Susanna arrived (she would have been with us earlier, but she’s also looking after the magnificent ICP orchestra which was also touring) Nice to have her aboard so I don’t have to deal with the logistics on tour, and - well - we like her.
Earshot Jazz is a festival that lasts several weeks - a few years ago I was here with my Fugimundi trio, and we played at Tully’s - which is a club with a bar. This time I was upgraded to the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) which is a posh venue with a great acoustic. It was the best concert we’d played on our US tour so far, the roof almost blew off and we sold quite a few cd’s. Trumpet player Chad McCullough and John Bishop, both from the Origin record label, came along, as did Alison Loerke, our North American agent. It was good to have Alison there, so we can evaluate and strategize for the future. We hung out at a nearby bar for a while, but later on wanted to buy a bottle of wine to drink at the hotel – you know how it is on the road, after a concert, some jetlag and some friends. So we went to an all-night supermarket to get some party items – chips, peanuts, and a bottle of wine. The cashier let us pay for everything but put the bottle of wine aside. “I cannot sell this to you” “Why ?” (were we THAT tipsy ?) “Because it is after 2 am and it’s against the law to sell wine or beer after 2 am”
Wow ! That was irritating – to be treated like a child, at my age…pfffffffffff. But in retrospect, eh, we didn;’t really need to be drinking another bottle of wine at that time of night, and were grateful the next morning for a ‘blessing in disguise’.
Another alcohol story : during dinner in Albuquerque the waiter asked for our ID”s because we’d ordered beer. Even if you have a long grey beard they still will “card” you if you order alcohol. In other parts of the US you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays, or in ‘dry’ counties you can’t buy it at all. What a country !
But I am happy to have an American agent – not only because it’s good to have someone closer to the ground, but also to help with the work permits. The visa procedure for artists has gotten more complicated and time consuming (and money consuming !). Having an American agent on the application makes it just a bit easier. Yet even for this Gatecrash tour, it took months and months to get the so-called “Notice of Action”, and then of course the personal interview at the Consulate in Amsterdam, and the cost involved for all that…
Funny that American musicians can come to Europe without work permits and play as much as they like.
Anyway, the next day Chad picked me up to show me Seattle. I learned a lot – it’s fun to tour the USA, but if you are a musician living here and trying to make a living from music it’s quite different. Americans have to work very hard. Even with a 40 hour workweek some people can’t make enough to pay their rent and need to get by on food stamps.
Chad lives in Seattle and has a job with the record label Origin and is designer as well. His wife also has a good job so they can get by. He tells me that if you live in Seattle, then the closest city to get a gig in is Portland and that is a 3 hour drive. Then there’s Denver (a 10 hour drive) and if you want to play in the Bay area like San Francisco or Oakland, it’s a 26 hour drive. Otherwise you have to fly and that is an expensive option. And if you’re not well known yet then you can never earn the travel costs from the fees. So if you aren’t nationally famous, you’re stuck playing gigs in your own town.
It’s not easy now in Europe either, but lots better than in the States. In Holland everything is close by and you can get over the border to Germany, Belgium or France relatively quickly.
Seattle is a lovely city where a European like me can feel at home fast. It’s not built with too many ‘blocks’ and there are a lot of parks. It’s great to be shown around by a native – we drove a bit and went to the fish market. It’s famous because the fishmongers throw fish at each other from a far distance…
We had lunch in the fish restaurant and I do believe the fat came out of my ears, so much crème fraiche. I am slowly getting enough of it and have to look at my belly with some trepidation. Oooweeee. What will the scales say back home…
Everything is fat, or sugar, and in huge amounts. Gobs of butter on the cauliflower and the chai tea is so sweet your fillings pop.
Chad told me about the corn syrup industry – the farmers in the Midwest have way too much corn and it’s being subsidized by the federal government. That’s why the entire country is being overwhelmed by corn syrup, it’s in everything they eat. And it’s empty calories, which is why you’re hungry again after eating a hamburger – thank heavens this overdose of corn syrup is forbidden in Europe.
I also heard about Prohibition from 1918 – 1932. That was supposed to be good for the general health of the population, and had a moral component to it as well. The truth was that the farmers had figured out how to make a mixture of methanol to use for fuel for their tractors. The oil industry felt so threatened by that that they orchestrated a complete ban on any alcohol whatsoever.
In the neighborhood of Seattle the oil and rubber industry bought up a very long train track – and destroyed it immediately afterwards. Why ? Because rail travel was bad for the oil and rubber industry…the companies were sued for conspiracy and indeed, were convicted. The fine ? One dollar.
And as to the health ‘industry’ in the USA, well…let’s not even go there.
Amazing stories. But even more amazing to me is what is happening in the Netherlands now. We are following the USA in capitalism and privatization. Willful destruction of the whole support system for older people and handicapped people. Indeed, you shouldn’t have let yourself be handicapped. A real scandal.
Let’s get back to the tour. Right now we are flying from Seattle to Washington DC. Five hours flying time and we’ll arrive at 10 pm and tomorrow we play in the famous Blues Alley. It’s a mainstream club with cocktails and dinner, and we ought to play at least one standard – I don’t mind. It’s now what you play, but how you play it. It’s an invitation to connect with people, to win their hearts and souls.
That’s what I play for, and fulfilling your own heart’s energy, that reaches further than consciousness. Taking the audience with you on an adventure. EN if I know I can reach them by playing a tune they know, then I’ll do that – the challenge is to play it so that you aren’t compromising your won musical integrity. It has to fit in your own world. Otherwise you’re just pretending.
At Yoshi’s we played ‘Sometimes it Snows in April’ but that didn’t really work. Maybe because it’s more like a guitar song, and maybe because the jazz audience didn’t know it. If they do know it you can feel that sigh go through the hall. I think tomorrow we’ll play “Over the Rainbow”. Everyone knows that oen from the Wizard of Oz.
The next day was a day off. Because I’ve already reached 5000 friends on Facebook, Jasper helped me make up a new page where I can reach an unlimited amount of friends. I’m not such a computer nerd and don’t have the patience for it. Jasper and Gulli mind the Gatecrash page on Facebook and I’m really grateful. We live in an age where social networking is essential, especially for an artist.
If you’re busy like that sometimes you aren’t practicing the trumpet or checking your other mail – life on the road, even on a day off !
OK ! Blues Alley ! A famous club that all the major jazz artists have played. So I think I ought to play there too…ten years ago I never would have dreamt this. Four o’clock : soundcheck. They hadn’t really read the rider and didn’t notice that we need a transformer to get the voltage from 110 to 220…after a few hours the problem was solved.
Blues Alley is a mainstream club, where you can eat and drink. And it’s in a town where people have heard and seen a lot and people can be blasé. So to get a Fender Rhodes we had to pay$ 390. It can get worse, I’ve heard of clubs that already have a drum set that you have to rent and that gets taken off the fee. This happens in New York – but to be honest, it happens in Paris too.
It can be hard to garner an audience – like in all big cities. I’ve heard that even jazz icons like Lee Konitz can have a hard time getting a full hall.
So ! two sets for two different audiences – we had 65 people the first set, and another 15 the second. It’s normal that the second set has less people, but I did have to swallow hard. It made me think of my first gig in Enschede with my own band…playing for 3 people –
But Gatecrash is “Great Crash” (ha ha, I wish it were Great Cash) – despite it all we played our hearts out with two encores, Jasper almost ruined the drum set, and everyone who stayed on had a good time. But I noticed this the next morning, exhausted. This is a lesson I need to learn as well – pacing.
Next morning up really early and taking the Acela to New York. A train ride that takes 3 hours and costs $ 162. There is WiFi but the train is so rollicking that you can’t type. A country that doesn’t care enough about its trains. Yes indeed – the oil companies have had their way !
As soon as we get to NYC I meet up with Jan Louter, who is making a documentary about me and my music. Jan has been a fan since I played Paul van Brugge’s music for his film “A Sad Flower in the Sand”
Because I’m playing abroad more and more , and New York is the last day of the tour, Jan wanted to do some extra shots and recording in New York. So he had me in a taxi going over the Brooklyn Bridge toward Manhattan, and another scene where I’m looking out of the hotel room onto Ground Zero. He also interviewed the Gatecrashers….wonder what they said about me, ha ha.
There’s always something beautiful and exciting happening in this city, and it was a nice present that my big hero Kenny Wheeler was playing that night at the Jazz Standard, the club where my birthday mate Dave Douglas organizes his FONT festival every year, the Festival of New Trumpet Music. Two years ago I played that festival with Ingrid Jensen and Tim Hagens for a Woody Shaw evening.
There was a real big band scrunched onto a small stage in a club that can hold maybe 150 people, max. This too is New York. All over the city there are venues where the most amazing performances are done for a relatively small audience. And everything that happens here is ‘outstanding’. Three sets in one evening, so you have about 450 people all together and that is if you sell out. A big band has about 19 people, so you can figure out that they each just get a handful of dollars for the entire night. This too is New York.
Many concerts are “door gigs” and the competition is intense, so of course people earn very little. Musicians, even the famous ones, that live in big cities like New York don’t earn their money in the cities they live in, but at the festivals – usually the European festivals. They play in the clubs to get the exposure – and that, to be honest, is also why I’m here. As Eartha Kitt said “Every performance is an audition for the next”. You never know who’s going to be in the audience. New York is the place to be and the players on the scene keep an eye on who’s playing where.
The next day is our gig at Drom, a club on Avenue A on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that books jazz, pop and world music. A really great club ! An excellent sound engineer and really nice people. That is such a blessing, especially when you realize how hard Americans have to work to keep their head above water. Many people have two or three jobs and that can take a toll on their attitude and state of mind.
There weren’t that many people, but it was a good audience and we played our hearts out. The roof went oof the club ! Funny, it doesn’t really matter whether the club was full. I was so proud of Gatecrash when I stepped off the stage. We told our story the way we wanted to and did it in New York.
Thanks America for having us over, and see you next time !
dd. 14/11/2011
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| 25/09/11 | Tour Gatecrash Azië 2011 |
| 28/09/11 | September 28th |
| 29/09/11 | September 29th |
| 30/09/11 | September 30th |
| 01/10/11 | October 1st |
| 02/10/11 | October 2nd |
| 03/10/11 | October 3rd |
| 24/11/11 | Americaaaaaaa here we come! |
DISCOGRAPHY
Live at the Concertgebouw
V-Flow
Skop Gat
News
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| 05-02: | Eric Vloeimans | Zwolle |
| De Singel | ||
| 05-02: | Matangi Quartet | Amsterdam |
| Beurs van Berlage | ||
| 05-02: | Gidon Kremer | Amsterdam |
| Muziekgebouw aan het IJ | ||
| 06-02: | Inon Barnatan | Arnhem |
| Recital Alisa Weilerstein | ||
| 06-02: | sensual | |
| De Kleine Komedie - Amsterdam | ||
| 07-02: | Eric Vloeimans | Beusichem |
| Theater Heerenlogement | ||
| 08-02: | Fay Claassen | Darmstadt |
| Stadtkirche Darmstadt | ||
| 08-02: | Combattimento Consort Amsterdam | Rotterdam |
| Rotterdamse Schouwburg | ||
| 08-02: | Bart Wirtz | Luik |
| Jacques Pelzer Jazz Club | ||
| 08-02: | Amstel Quartet | Luxemburg |
| Philharmonie | ||
