Other Groups

Bite the Gnatze

The Dutch guitarist and banjo player Paul Pallesen started the band Bite the Gnatze in 1995 to make exciting music inspired by jazz, Dutch/European folkmusic, country & western and instant composing. There is always an open approach to the arrangements which makes the music unpredictable and free.

Getatchew Mekurya & The Ex & guests

Getatchew Mekuria is the most revered veteran of the Ethiopian saxophone. He is a real giant, both physically and musically. In his seventies, he is still in full voice, with his own, powerfully distinctive style of playing. His huge vibrato, both forceful and fragile, plays around the vocal lines, using typical Ethiopian embellishments. He started playing in 1947 in the Addis Abeba Municipal Band, then in the Haile Selassie Theatre Orchestra and the Police Orchestra. He also backed up all the famous Ethiopian singers. He is the inventor of a musical style called the Shellele, which originates from an heroic war-chant, translated to the saxophone. When he plays it, he dons a lion¹s mane and cuts loose with furious solos that are a kind of free jazz, from before free jazz existed. Getatchew's melodies and solos mesh with The Ex's rhythms, noise and vocals, supported by a guest horn section, like they were made for each other!

Spinifex Orchestra

Ab Baars Quartet - Kinda Dukish

"Few missions in jazz are as perilous as re-arranging Duke Ellington tunes: you’re gonna do a better job of setting those jewels than he did? With the palette of distinctive voices he had to work with? Kinda dubious. (....) What these players create here is a minor miracle. A postmodern quartet plays Duke loosey-goosey, and yet dots its performances with moments that recreate the sound and majesty of the Ellington orchestra. It's the kinda thing you wouldn't think possible if you hadn't heard it yourself. We do not speak for the dead-do not say, “Ellington would have loved (or hated) it,” because how the hell would we (or anyone who makes such stupid claims) know that? So I'll speak for myself: I kinda love it." (Kevin Whitehead)