Tribute to Weather Report:

A tribute to the band Weather Report!
This band, formed by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, has brought together so many well-known musicians from the jazz and pop world and in doing so, has turned the entire history of modern jazz, fusion, and the pop industry on its head and influenced it.

Famous names like Jaco Pastorius, Steve Gadd, Peter Erskine, Omar Hakim, Narada Michael Walden, Alex Acuña have been part of the band over the years. All these musicians, due to their playing in Weather Report, have been able to gain extensive experience playing with bands, both in jazz settings and in the soul and pop circuits. They are generally recognized as session musicians in the show business circuit as the pillars supporting the big stars of the pop world.

The band has won several Grammys and multiple times has rocked the North Sea Jazz stage. 

A well-deserved tribute, therefore, to these inventors of the specific ‘Weather Report style,’ an exotic melting mix of jazz, rock, fusion and different styles of World Music.

Tribute to Kenny Burrel:  

In addition to being a professor and director of one of the most prestigious American music universities (UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music), Kenny Burrel was also a highly gifted guitarist. He was greatly inspired by Django Reinhardt, but also by blues giants such as T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.  

His most famous composition is ‘Midnight Blue’, but perhaps more well-known is his work as a session musician, in which he accompanied the big stars of jazz from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  

For instance, he toured with Oscar Peterson and Tommy Flanagan. He could be heard on records by Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Smith, and later played in Benny Goodman’s orchestra. He experienced musical highlights with John Coltrane in the piece “The Cats” and with Stanley Turrentine in the afore mentioned ‘Midnight Blue’, and he also had success with arranger Gil Evans.  

A tribute to this great guitar hero could therefore not be missed. Let us gladly reintroduce you to the musical greatness of this guitar hero.

Tribute to Chet Baker: 

“The handsome boy with whom things went wrong”

One of the great “trumpet heroes” in jazz history. He played in various ensembles and with the greats of the world, including Charlie Parker. His composition ‘My Funny Valentine’ is one of the greatest jazz hits of all time and is still performed today by many jazz musicians as one of the principal standard works from the Real Book. 

Lyrical, soft, melancholic melodies, played purely on the trumpet, which he could also sing in a sweet-voiced manner. His singing and trumpet playing were inseparably connected. He was an exponent of the West Coast Cool Jazz movement of the 1950s of the past century. His fondness for addictive substances, particularly heroin, ultimately became fatal for him. This love often brought him to Amsterdam, where he ultimately met his end. 

A tribute in memory of Chet is self-evident considering what this genius contributed to the jazz community musically.

Tribute to Hank Mobley:

Henry Mobley, as Hank is officially called, was a tenor saxophonist. He is known as the proverbial “middleweight tenor saxophone champion” of his time, as his tone was less aggressive than Coltrane’s, but more pronounced than the soft tonal approach of Lester Young. At the beginning of his career, Mobley worked a lot with Dizzie Gillespie, Max Roach, and Art Blakey, and later with Horace Silver in the Jazz Messengers. During his Hardbop period, he played a lot with, among others, Freddie Hubbard. Later, he also had a brief period playing with Miles Davis at a time when Miles was looking for a replacement for John Coltrane. Notably, much of Mobley’s own work was not released or picked up. Analyses suggest that Mobley’s very pleasant mainstream tone was considered less commercially interesting by record companies at the time. He therefore became primarily known as a sideman.

This is not fair and only in a later stage, his genius was recognized and discovered. At that time, tribute concerts were also dedicated to him by fellow musicians.

This tribute is no different from the earlier ones and aims to make Hank Mobley’s musicality and genius known and spread to a wider audience.

Tribute to Roy Haynes:

Roy “the Snap Crackle” Haynes is one of the most frequently recorded jazz drummers.

He became famous for his specific snare drum technique and sound, hence his nickname “the Snap Crackle.”

Roy played with countless jazz greats. He has been inducted into the hall of fame for contemporary drummers, which few jazz drummers have achieved. At the age of 83, he was still voted the best contemporary jazz drummer of that moment.

Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, together with Jim Keltner, dedicated a tribute concert to Roy Haynes.

Among the long list of artists with whom Haynes has collaborated are the superstars of jazz, such as: Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan, and Pat Metheny.

A drummer who has accompanied so many jazz superstars and who was recognized by peers as the best among contemporary drummers into very old age deserves a tribute, and this tribute is therefore a rightful one.

A tribute to a man who from behind the drum kit managed for years to move many listeners and fellow musicians.

Tribute to Eric Dolphy: 

Eric Dolphy was an exceptional musician and composer. He only lived to be 36 years old. 

He was known as a multi-instrumentalist. He had the peak of his career in the 1950s and 60s of the last century. He was a prominent musician during that period. 

His main instrument with which he gained attention was the bass clarinet, but he also played flute and soprano saxophone. 

Eric Dolphy is said to have been very influential on John Coltrane’s playing and especially is said to have influenced Coltrane’s way of approaching harmonies more outside the chords.

During his career, he played alongside musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Chico Hamilton. In his band, he collaborated with musicians like Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, and Woody Shaw. 

Considering the significant influence this musician had in his short life on many well-known jazz musicians and the Jazz history, he deserves a tribute.

This evening is dedicated to keeping his legacy alive.

Tribute to Dexter Gordon:

“Long tall Dexter, the Sophisticated Giant.”

Dexter was a tenor saxophonist and one of the most influential musicians of the bebop era.

Where he initially influenced musicians like Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane in their bebop playing, he later followed their influence in the later period of Hardbop.

Dexter Gordon is often seen smoking on album covers and these pictures, especially those for the Royal Roost, have become an iconic standard for jazz photography.

In his later period, Dexter was also seen as an actor and even received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his leading role in the jazz film Round Midnight.

In his career, he played with many iconic (jazz) musicians. Among them, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Harry Edison. He also played with Nat King Cole.

In the later phase of his life, he moved to Europe, where he found the living environment much more pleasant than in America. Here he played among others, together with other emigrated compatriots, such as James Moody and Tommy Flanagan.

Dexter Gordon has left his mark on jazz history in various ways, as we know it today.

A worthy tribute to this giant of jazz is therefore more than deserved.

Tribute to Joe Henderson:

Joe Henderson is one of the less conspicuous jazz tenor saxophonists. Yet he plays a leading role on one of the most famous jazz pieces of all time. The saxophone part on ‘Song for my father,’ the Real Book hit single by pianist Horace Silver, was played by Henderson and formed an iconic sax solo that is still covered by many jazz tenor saxophonists today. Henderson’s style is characterized as bebop/hard bop, alongside R&B and Latin. He was strongly inspired by the playing of Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, and Stan Getz, to name a few of his influences. He played with various jazz greats of his time. Besides his work for Horace Silver, among others, he played with: Herbie Hancock, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, and also very briefly with Miles Davis. He also had a short stint in the early 1970s with the band ‘Blood Sweat and Tears’. For this versatile tenor saxophonist who to this day also has inspired and influenced many saxophonists, a tribute is in order.

This tribute evening will give the listener a broader view of the compositions and work that Joe contributed to in his heyday and will give him the honor that a musician of his caliber deserves.

Tribute to Miles Davis:

 A tribute to “the avant-garde godfather of the jazz trumpet with a punk attitude.” Sacred cows in jazz music did not exist for Miles, unless it was to kick against them and let a new movement emerge. He was also called the Picasso of jazz. 

Over the years, Miles played various styles: Bebop, Cool Jazz, modal jazz, and he was one of the founders of modern Jazz Rock/Fusion. 

He became especially known for his specific Miles Davis sound, sometimes with the distinctive muted trumpet. Many jazz greats started their careers in, or became famous in, one of his music groups. John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Gil Evans, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and long after also Marcus Miller are a few names certainly connected with Miles Davis. That said, he is immediately the most influential jazz musician we have ever known. Several  compositions: ‘So What’, ‘All Blues’, ‘Round About Midnight’, ‘Blue in green’. They have all become classics. 

When we’ re organizing tributes, a tribute to this most influential jazz musician who ever lived must not be missed. This will be an evening to celebrate the love for jazz in all its facets and forms and to never forget this hero.

Tribute to Jimmy Giuffre:

Jimmy Giuffre was a jazz clarinetist, composer, and saxophonist. At the end of his career, he mainly played tenor and baritone saxophone. He is known for developing jazz forms in which a freer interaction between musicians was central.

At the beginning of his career, he was mainly a well-known figure in West Coast Jazz and Cool Jazz.

In his own music groups, he initially played with Jim Hall and Ralph Peña. He also became known from a number of television specials that focused on jazz music.

Later, together with pianist Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, he developed a form of Free Jazz that leaned more toward classical chamber music. Long before the “free improvisation craze” in Europe, Giuffre explored with Bley and Swallow the possibilities that completely improvised music offered to musicians.

In the final phase of his career, he was hired by several renowned music universities in America to teach his approach to jazz improvisation and music composition.

Jimmy Giuffre has left a significant mark on how jazz music developed in the 1970s and has thus been an important founder of a movement in jazz.

A tribute to this hero of free improvisation is therefore more than justified.