Audio By Carbonatix
Not all is running perfectly at the world’s largest jazz festival. It’s 2:30 a.m. in the Dutch concert hall in which the North Sea Jazz Festival is being held. Trumpeter Lester Bowie sits backstage, waiting to go on with his band Brass Fantasy. The situation threatens disaster for the jazzman. The festival artists before him have all gone overtime in their sets, leaving Bowie to open half an hour after the building was to be emptied. Worse yet, the trumpeter is having his show filmed for European television and will have to rely on what’s left of the crowd for audience reaction.
But when Bowie and his colorfully outfitted band finally take the stage, they are greeted by an appreciative roar from the 4,000-plus fans still packing the room. It’s hard to tell who is more ecstatic, Bowie or the crowd. Nothing is going to spoil the meeting of the great Chicago jazz band and its die-hard fans.
Imagine similarly adoring audiences fawning over 250 other acts and you have the North Sea Jazz Festival, a musical summit with a reputation for being not only the largest but also the ultimate jazz experience.
Believe it. A number of reasons makes it well worth jumping nine time zones in a sardine-can-packed 747 headed for the Netherlands. Every July, both artists and fans carry out a four-day takeover of the towns of Den Haag and nearby Amsterdam. Location is part of the festival’s success. Probably no other cities in the world more closely resemble the loose-and-flying Storyville section of New Orleans, where jazz was born. No wonder the two places have been favorite haunts for expatriate American jazz players.
Jazz music abounds in the clubs. Laws are so lenient that prostitutes sit in store windows in Amsterdam’s famous red-light district, pulling red drapes closed after snagging a customer. A dozen strains of hashish and marijuana are advertised on chalkboard menus in bars everywhere. Everyone is laid-back and having a good day, and listening to jazz while they do. It’s Louisiana, and 1920, all over again.
Of course, part of the North Sea’s success stems from a line-up of music no other festival comes anywhere near matching in size. Every year, jazz addicts from every corner of the world pack the cities’ clubs and empty the local jazz record stores while waiting for the evening opening of the Congress Center. The Center is a monstrous, three-tiered maze of halls able to accommodate the several hundred acts and more than 50,000 fans who come and go during the extended weekend.
For most of the year, the Center hosts international political gatherings. But during every second week in July, the only conferences being held are among clusters of fans voting on which bands to catch. Want to hear Ornette Coleman in the Javaanse Jongens Pavilion? Or maybe pianist Oscar Peterson in the PWA Hall? Or Miles Davis in the huge JVC Statenhal? Or the Harper Brothers in the smaller Van Gogh Room?
Choosing whom to catch and whom to pass on is tough, but no one is complaining–neither the audience nor the artists, who become regular jazz fans after finishing their sets. Guitarist Pat Metheny can barely contain his glee as his group opens the festival. “It’s great coming here to play for you,” he tells the crowd, “but afterwards, getting to see all the jazz greats in one place at one time is a truly unbelievable experience for me.”
Players wander from room to room to catch their peers and influences in concert, and meet up with them later in the lounge of the nearby Bel Air hotel for late-hour jam sessions. Lucky fans aware of these little-known meetings are able to catch more jazz and the sunrise at the same time.
But a dozen stages playing jazz simultaneously offer more than enough choices for most. And, bless them, the festival organizers make those options as simple as possible.
Each hall is given a distinct musical personality, making the fest an even greater hit by avoiding confusion. Tried-and-true legends like hornmen Nat Adderley and Benny Carter occupy several of the more intimate rooms, and attract older jazz fans with a taste for the mainstream. Vibraphonist Gary Burton also plays one of these halls, but introduces a new band of near-adolescent sidemen who visibly quake over their presence at the notable gathering.
Other rooms favor newer faces. Eliane Elias seduces a small crowd of several hundred with her very feminine Brazilian piano style. Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba fills the Mondrian Hall to SRO capacity twice, leaving even Pat Metheny to settle for a seat on the floor. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band stirs up enough New Orleans voodoo to bring a basement crowd of Europeans to its feet dancing.
Dancing or not, an occasional crowd is doomed to be upright. The very worst: John Zorn’s assaultive band Naked City plays a tiny room where conditions approximate mayhem. A full hour before the saxophonist takes the stage, eager fans cram the hall. The ones with seats pelt the others with empty beer cups, demanding the impossible, that they sit and clear the view.
Zorn, well aware of the tension, appears and coaxes the wild crowd into a near riot. A miserable environment, yes, but a perfect match for Zorn’s lengthy set of angry thrash-jazz. Certainly, none of his young followers finds the conditions bad enough to leave, even when the saxman verbally slams the event by dedicating his tune “Jazz Snob Eat Shit” to the festival patrons.
A circus tent, appropriately enough, is used as an extension hall to showcase the colorful artists of progressive jazz. James “Blood” Ulmer enthralls both fans and the curious with his heavy dose of Hendrix-influenced music, wandering the stage as his sizable frame dwarfs the guitar he strangles. Of special interest is a rare appearance by sax giant Ornette Coleman, an experience for jazz fans akin to the apparition of a saint. When a short delay before his performance leads the eager crowd to call out its affections, an emcee appears. “Please do not disturb the artist with your whistling,” he chides, calling for typical Dutch politeness. The audience falls silent. Nothing during the festival better emphasizes the European reverence for American jazz.
But audience appreciation is often deafening following acts playing the enormous JVC Statenhal. Imagine a room the size of a football field in which music ping-pongs between two stages.
A ticketholder never venturing out of this room would not feel shorted. The blues are well represented each night by either B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, or Robert Cray. Their fiery sets prove that the deeper the festival burrows into American music, the louder the crowd reaction. James Brown sideman Maceo Parker proves the same point with his well-received hour of funk preaching.
Although pretentious in their stage banter, the Neville Brothers coax lusty, full-fledged screams from the female members of the audience following every Aaron Neville vocal. Both Miles and Metheny bring down the house with sets of familiar favorites. Even little-known New York songwriter Kip Hanrahan draws a sizable turnout because of the presence of ex-Cream bassist-vocalist Jack Bruce fronting the band.
Hanrahan paces the shadows of the stage, occasionally stepping into the light to whisper musical direction to Bruce or pianist Don Pullen. Van Morrison’s pastoral hymns draw a huge throng of worshipful listeners, possibly the largest during the festival. The reclusive Irishman opens with several cuts full of honking sax work, as though wanting to merit his presence at a jazz gathering.
The JVC Statenhal’s most surprising set comes from David Sanborn, who relinquishes his fluff-jazz playlist for a much meatier selection of new material. From the moment he opens with Charlie Haden’s “Sandino,” the flexible saxophonist presents an entirely fresh, Spanish-tinged approach to jazz. No one cries out for the hits that made him famous. Probably no one crammed in the auditorium expects him to play pop-jazz–the rest of the festival is devoid of lightweight players.
But nothing–not the location, the thorough planning, or even shockingly good music like Sanborn’s set–can outclass the perfect audience. German and Japanese jazz addicts awaiting Dizzy Gillespie’s set struggle to exchange greetings with French fans seated next to them. Americans graciously keep their cool as they bite into sandwiches food vendors tell them are made of raw pork or raw herring. Dutch couples coo in out-of-the-way corners, billboards for a European romanticism still in full bloom.
Not a cop is seen–or needed–in four days. Only seldom does a bored security guard come into sight, watching for trouble and finding none. Fans respectfully avoid bothering jazz icons like Gerry Mulligan as he wanders the site in a perplexed search for his stage. Nor do they approach Tuck and Patti on a plane headed back to the States, as the duo counts its money and prepares for the standard customs search.
The respect is mutual. On the final night, guitarist John Scofield interrupts his set of wiry playing to ask the crowd, “How does it feel to be such a famous audience?”
The house lets Scofield know, proving with thunderous applause the audience’s major part in making the North Sea fest the greatest jazz show on earth.
Everyone is laid-back and having a good day, and listening to jazz while they do. It’s Louisiana, and 1920, all over again.
“Please do not disturb the artist with your whistling,” he chides, calling for typical Dutch politeness. The audience falls silent.
Fiery sets by B.B. King and Buddy Guy prove that the deeper the festival burrows into American music, the louder the crowd reaction.
Americans graciously keep their cool as they bite into sandwiches food vendors tell them are made of raw pork or raw herring.
