I had a fabulous evening in the Amsterdam jazz and improvisation temple the Bimhuis www.bimhuis.nl with my favourite Boi Akih group. They launched their new CD: Circles in a square society, and it is a must-have one.
I had a fabulous farewell retirement party on 18 January 2012 by IRC in The Hague . A party centre turned into an Amsterdam Jazz cafe, with a DJ with jazz on vinyl, a couple of nice speeches, and an All that Jazz publication from colleagues with their music choices for me. I had my mother (turning 88) and sister (turning 70) dancing! My daughter Mirjam and brother in law where also there.
I have listened all afternoon to Cor’s “Dick de Jong Tribute Eclectic Top Twenty” that was in the publication. He also emailed me his selection from Youtube with fantastic films. He is the one and only able to link all this music clips with his highlights from my career, even with links to my sabbatical leave blog from 2004 and 2005.
The playlist has great variety from all over the world, with some classic performances and events. I you are interested you can access it from You Tube.
Enjoy, comments are welcome!
As early adaptor I have already quite a few CDs from new artists that received $50,000 from ‘believers’ in them on the Sell a band site . Good stuff. It brought me also two nice concerts in Amsterdam. One in Toomlers and one in Paradiso. I am still a member there.
A break away group is Africa Unsigned that focuses on selected African musicians to record music funded by fans. Through “crowd funding” artists raise $10.000 for the recording, distribution and promotion of an EP.
I have decided to put another $500 in artists on this site. Just now $30 in Victor Kunonga from Zimababwe
Kunonga’s lyrics reflect the voices of the voiceless in contemporary Zimbabwe, emerging from crisis and social inequity. His songs and their popularity derive from a profound sense of dignity and social awareness; songs that address and confront issues of poverty, dispossession, and the rights and needs of ordinary people.
I also put $30 in Neema.
From my travel as a groupie with my favourite Boi Akih band to Indonesia I’ll be using my blog to occasionally post messages, pictures and short film clips from my flip video camera. I am not sure if I have internet access in Ambon, where the band will do three concerts.
Here is a test with two pictures from my travel for work to Indonesia in 2007.
Canal in Yogjakarta
Yogjakarta harbour
Monica Akihary and Niels Brouwer have been my neighbours for years. Together they form my favourite band Boi Akih. Singer Monica’s heritage is Moluccan/Dutch and Niels is composer and a fabulous guitar player. Listen to some of their clips at http://www.myspace.com/boiakih.
I’ve seen them in concert various times, sometimes with the two of them. In different set-ups they expand from duo to a six piece band. Each of these configurations has its own sound due to the interplay of members searching for their own origin during an ongoing adventurous voyage.
Their performances always reach the hearts of the audiences. So I am going to follow them on tour in Indonesia in September, with planned concerts in Jakarta, Ambon and Bandung.
It had a four out of five stars review in De Volkskrant on 4 March 2009 after the first performance of the Lost and Found Orchestra at the Carre theatre in Amsterdam, where they played until tonight. The review was so interesting that it triggered me to go this wonderful circus shaped theatre on the river Amstel together with my daughter Mirjam. We experienced an overwhelming experience. With a core group of 35 musicians and with a full choir, LFO creates a symphonic piece of music theatre, using Afro and Caribbean rhythms for their one-tone, unconventional instruments made from traffic cones, hose-pipes, saws, plumbing tubes, bottlebellows, glass instruments and anything else they can lay their hands on. They have a Hosaphone (garden hose with a brass mouthpiece and a funnel mouth) and Plumpet section, see a short video they have online.
Creators of LFO Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell also made large format movies. Wild Ocean 3D was the title of the last one. They are currently producing a new movie about endangered tropical coral reefs and have other 3D movies in development.