Baars – Kneer – Elgart
After having met in many different musical occasions over the last 10 years in Amsterdam's lively improv scene, Baars and Kneer started to work in duo setting in 2008; this co-operation culminated in the internationally praised CD Windfall. In 2010, right after having played in the Amsterdam Bimhuis with guest drummer Bill Elgart, the duo became naturally a trio. The concerts the trio performed ever since in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were received very well (a.o. at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, Ulrichsberg, Nickelsdorfer Konfrontationen, Nickelsdorf…).
An intimate confrontation on sly musical improvisation levels. Together, they meander between form and abstraction, consensus and dissent, dissonance and echo, but the real power lies in the seemingly endless variations of timbre, which take place in their dialogues. Beautiful poetry!
Résumé Ab Baars: Tenor saxophone, Clarinet, Shakuhachi
Born in 1955 in Magrette, The Netherlands, multi-reedist Ab Baars is a unique and prolific contributor to the Dutch creative jazz scene, involved in a number of ensembles as leader and as collaborator, and also an accomplished solo performer. His inimitable sense of phrasing, fearless deployment of extended techniques, and idiosyncratic tonal/timbral approaches have earned him international attention, and none other than Misha Mengelberg coined the term "ab music" as a succinct descriptor for his personal style.
Baars' first instrument was the tenor saxophone, which he began playing in the early '70s in his hometown of Eindhoven, and by 1975 he was a member of bassist Niko Langenhuijsen's free jazz Ohm Sextet, making his debut on an eponymously titled vinyl LP by the ensemble recorded at a live date in Vlissingen during November 1977. Over the following years, Baars began studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory and became active in the Dutch improvisational and contemporary classical music scenes. His debut LP as a leader, Carrousel, was released by the Data label in 1984; the album included trio pieces (with Guus Janssen on piano and Marie"tte Rouppe van der Voort on alto saxophone, flute, and piccolo) as well as several solo tracks featuring the reedman on either tenor or soprano saxophone. Two years later, Baars joined pianist Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra, a groundbreaking ensemble that has continued to bring him some of his highest international visibility. Baars made his first recorded appearance (on tenor and soprano saxophones and clarinet) with ICP on 1987's Two Programs: Performs Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk, and the reedman has appeared on all of the group's subsequent recordings extending into the 21st century.
The year 1989 was quite successful and productive for Baars: he obtained Dutch Ministry of Culture grant support for studies in Los Angeles with clarinetist John Carter; he received a Boy Edgar Prijs jazz award; and Krang, his first album comprised entirely of unaccompanied solo performances (on soprano, tenor, and baritone saxophones and clarinet), was released by the Geestgronden label, which would also issue many of his subsequent albums of this time period, including his second album of unaccompanied solos (on clarinet and tenor saxophone), 1997's Verderame. As the '90s began, Baars formed arguably his most important group as a leader, the Ab Baars Trio featuring bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Martin van Duynhoven. The trio's debut disc, 3900 Carol Court, was named after Carter's address, and released by Geestgronden in 1992, the year of the clarinetist's death. Geestgronden would release a number of Ab Baars Trio albums during the remainder of the '90s and into the new millennium, including 1995's live Sprok, 1999's A Free Step (consisting entirely of Carter compositions), and 2001's Songs (featuring interpretations of Native American music).
Baars would invite various well-known figures of the avant jazz and creative improvised music world to tour and/or record with his trio over the years, including soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonist Roswell Rudd, and multi-reedist Ken Vandermark. In 2001, the Data label released Four, by the Ab Baars Trio plus Rudd, and in 2003 the Wig imprint issued the trio's ten-year anniversary album Party at the Bimhuis, recorded live at Amsterdam's preeminent jazz venue in January of that year and featuring the group supplemented by guests violist Ig Henneman, Mengelberg, Janssen, and Rouppe van der Voort. In 2008 Wig released Goofy June Bug by the trio plus Vandermark on tenor sax and clarinet, and in 2011 Wig repackaged the previous trio recordings 3900 Carol Court, A Free Step, Songs, and Party at the Bimhuis in the five-CD set Ab Baars Trio 20 Years: 1991-2011, which included a disc of new Baars compositions, Gawky Stride.
Much of Baars' work as a leader and collaborator during the new millennium has been released by the Wig label, operated by Baars and violist Henneman, a partner to the reedman in life as well as music and business. These albums included Veer and Haul, a 2003 duet recording by Baars and Rouppe van der Voort; Kinda Dukish, a 2005 recording by the Ab Baars Quartet (Baars' regular trio plus trombonist Joost Buis); and 2010's Time to Do My Lions, Baars' third album of unaccompanied solos, this time performed on tenor sax, clarinet, and shakuhachi, the latter an instrument he first purchased and studied in 2005 and began including in his performances and recordings thereafter. Baars and Henneman also began a duo project after performing at Rome's Festival Controindicazioni in 1999; Duo Baars-Henneman have toured worldwide and released two Wig albums, Stof (2006) and Autumn Songs (2013), and Sliptong, an album by the trio of Baars, Henneman, and pianist Mengelberg, arrived on Wig in 2009. Baars has also performed and recorded with ensembles led by Henneman, including the Ig Henneman Tentet (appearing on the Wig albums Repeat That, Repeat in 1995 and Indigo in 1998) and Ig Henneman Sextet (Cut a Caper in 2011 and Live @ the Ironworks Vancouver in 2012). Other artists with whom Baars has recorded throughout his career include the Maarten Altena Nonet, Cor Fuhler's Corkestra, and Terrie Ex of the Ex.
Résumé Meinrad Kneer: Double Bass
Meinrad Kneer is a bass player, composer, improviser, band-leader and label owner and moves along the musical boundaries of jazz, improvised, contemporary-composed and ethnic music.
He studied biology at the University of Tübingen. From 1995 to 1999 he studied double bass and music in the Netherlands (conservatories of Hilversum and Amsterdam), where he quickly entered the Dutch jazz- and subsequently the international scene of free improvisation.
In 2002 he receives one of the most prestigious Dutch music awards: the 'Jur Naessens Music Award' for the project 'New Anatomy', realized with his band 'Dalgoo' (co-led from 1998-2005 with reed player Tobias Klein) and inspired by the work of the Russian writer Daniil Kharms.
His compositional work has been supported between 2001-2011 by the Dutch 'Funds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst' (today 'Funds Podiumkunsten').
From 2007 to 2011 he organized the concert series 'U-Ex(perimental)' devoted to free improvisation, in cooperation with flutist Mark Alban Lotz, the Centraal Museum and the SJU Jazz Podium in Utrecht (NL).
Since 2011 he lives in Berlin.
He currently leads the Meinrad Kneer Quintet, the Trio Baars / Kneer / Elgart, the Phosphoros Ensemble, and works as a co-leader in the groups Rose/ Kneer/ Barrett, Sequoia, Spoon 3 and Willers/ Kneer/ Marien.
He also plays a.o. with the following ensembles: Andreas Willers Septet and Bite the Gnatze and worked with musicians as Najma Akhtar, Richard Barrett, Johannes Bauer, Han Bennink, Axel Dörner, Bill Elgart, Ceylan Ertem, Fred Frith, Tristan Honsinger, Paul Lovens, Roscoe Mitchell and Jon Rose, and ensembles as different Baraná formations, the Ab Baars Quartet, House of Mirrors, the Gravitones, Play Station 6, the Astronotes, the Joost Buis tentet, the AXYZ-Ensemble, the bigtet Tetzepi, the Ig Henneman String Quartet and realized, with his own bands and as a side man, about 30 records.
During the last years he has been touring extensively in most countries of Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Turkey, Morocco and Mexico.
His internationally renowned label 'Evil Rabbit Records', founded together with pianist Albert van Veenendaal in 2006, is dedicated to contemporary improvised music rooted in the European culture.
Résumé Bill Elgart: Drums
Elgart was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He studied at the Berklee College of Music and was a student of Alan Dawson.
In the 1960s he played with Carla Bley, Paul Bley, Marion Brown, Sam Rivers, Lowell Davidson, Mark Levinson, Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Jack Walrath and Glenn Ferris. In 1968 he made his recording debut on Mr. Joy, with Paul Bley and Gary Peacock. He moved to Europe in 1976, settling first in Salzburg, Austria and later in Ulm, Germany. He has played with Karl Berger, Dave Holland, Ed Schuller, and Wayne Darling over the course of the 1980s and 1990s.
He was a member of the group Zollsound 4 with Carlo Mombelli, Lee Konitz, and Thomas Zoller. He played in the Sundial Trio with Peter O'Mara from 1982 to 1990. In 1991 he worked with Caoma alongside Ed Schuller, Sigi Finkel, and Tomasz Stanko. Stanko and Elgart also played with Vlatko Kucan in the 1990s. Elgart worked on the Annemarie Roelofs Projekt, alongside Berger, Frank Möbus, Vitold Rek, and Ingrid Sertso.
He has worked as a sideman on recordings by Leszek Zadlo, Manfred Bründl, Kenny Wheeler, Carlo Mombelli, Charlie Mariano, Arrigo Cappelletti, Franco D'Andrea, Wolfgang Lackerschmid, Claudio Fasoli, Sigi Finkel and Paolino Dalla Porta, and worked with Tim Berne, Barre Phillips, Eddie Gómez, Conny Bauer, Sheila Jordan, David Friedman and Matthias Schubert.
Current tour dates
Feb 1, 2017 - Feb 12, 2017Also available on request!
BOOKING ENQUIRIES
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Baars / Kneer / Elgart
Give No Quarter (Evil Rabbit Records ERR20)
Three years ago, we heard bassist Meinrad Kneer, one of the founders of the label Evil Rabbit Records, already in duet with reed player Ab Baars. The improvised music for connoisseurs on their debut album Windfall, left us with the wish for more. However, it took some time before we were served therein. Their new album, Give No Quarter, number twenty in the imaginative and recognizable design of the wayward label, includes a recording from October 2011, with an additional sparring partner. This is the American veteran drummer Bill Elgart (1942), perhaps best known for his work with pianist Paul Bley. A brilliant move, because Elgart is a typical 'musicians' musician', who thinks- and listens along, which is exactly, what the duo needs. When needed and when the music lingers on the summits of silence, he knows how to efface. Especially when Baars plays the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi, the atmosphere is ethereal and zen-like. Also on clarinet, the Dutchman sounds sotto voce and his love for Olivier Messiaen’s work comes through. The bird-like rhythmicity in Eurus and Late preamble gives an indication of this fact. But it is not only the quietude, where this CD stands out. The album also has its violent moments, as in the title song (with Baars on tenor saxophone), where the bright lines make clear, that free jazz in 2013 sounds different, than in the sixties or seventies. Transparency, architectural structure and sublime sound colours are the elements that these three musicians assemble for a clear plea for free improvisation. ― Herman te Loo (28 October 2013, Jazzflits No. 206)
Dutch reeds master Ab Baars and German double bassist Meinrad Kneer began to work as a duo and recorded an acclaimed album, Windfall (Evil Rabbit, 2010). While playing a gig in 2010 at the Bimhuis Club in Amsterdam, the duo hosted veteran American drummer Bill Elgart, known for his collaborations with Paul Bley and Lee Konitz, and since then the duo became a trio. Give No Quarter, the debut album of the trio, was recorded in 2012 after a European tour.
As can be expected from these three experienced and resourceful improvisers this album features a powerful demonstration of true masters at work. The intimate interplay enables the trio to explore varied approaches and dynamics to improvisation. The trio moves organically between structured forms and abstract textures, alternating between consensus and dissent, dissonance and echo, physical, intense, transparent and fragile. Together they explore the timbre qualities of their instruments and these sound- oriented articulations blossom into inspired, poetic dialogues.
All thirteen pieces are credited to the trio, all feature the breadth of its vocabulary and the highly personal sound of each of the three. The trio plays spare blues Anacrusis, intense fiery free jazz Give No Quarter, Specific Gravity, meditative textures to uncompromising investigations of raw sounds Notus, all performed with natural ease and playful, creative joy. The beautiful, contemplative Eurus stresses the trio typical, emphatic interplay. Baars poetic clarinet lines are answered by imaginative arco playing of Kneer and punctuated briefly with gentle touches of Elgart. Baars unconventional exploration of the timbre spectrum of the Japanese shakuhachi flute on the meditative Zephyrus and Borea challenges Kneer and Elgart to deepen the serene atmosphere. Beautiful, arresting music. ― Eyal Hareuveni (All About Jazz)
It is always a pleasure, to hold a new release of the Dutch label Evil Rabbit Records in your hands. The packaging concept is as simple as it is ingenious: in a black gatefold cardboard box, you can find on one side the CD and on the other side an insert card, which you can catch a glance by a circular cutout in the outer shell. This cutout gives already first basic information, such as the cd title and the name of the musicians (the picture above shows only the removed insert card).
The so sympathetic offered music, consists mostly of sounds that are to some extent antithetical to fixation on physical media - improvisations and musical battles fought out by some giants of the Dutch Improvszene.
Give No Quarter is no exception. Under the lead of the doyen Ab Baars (tenor saxophone, clarinet, shakuhachi), the trio plays so light-footed and airy, that it is a real pleasure to listen to it. The two poles are the horn action on one side and the funny-rattling percussions of Bill Elgart on the other side.
The music unfolds in a stumbling and vibrating way and Meinrad Kneer often has to look, how he can adequately bring in his bass. One can suspect that his supporting role is an important one. It’s not always easy to hear that through the stirring of the shimmering percussion and the singsong of the horn. ― Zipo (10 October 2013, Aufabwegen Magazine)
Fa subito pensare alle classiche formazioni in trio di Rollins e Ayler, questo disco, e il secondo viene addirittura evocato apertamente quando Baars si impegna al sax tenore. Pezzi come Anacrusis e Give No Quarter, seppure non abbiano quella forza evocativa e la materia sonora sia più frammentata, non possono che far pensare all’Albert Ayler Trio (quello con Gary Peakock e Sunny Murray). È poi sempre Ayler a far capolino nella marcia funebre Song For Our Predecessors e nella lamentazione Tale Of The Bewildered Bee. Un altro collegamento con il sassofonista afroamericano sta nella presenza del batterista Bill Elgart, uomo di punta del jazz statunitense d’annata, che a suo tempo ha fatto accoppiata ritmica proprio con Gary Peacock.
Altrove, quando Baars impugna il clarinetto, è invece il profondo lirismo di Steve Lacy che fa occhiolino da bordo campo.
Se fosse tutto qui plauderei alla grande lezione di storia, razionalmente molto coinvolgente, ma il CD offre anche qualcosa di più.
Robe come Zephyrus e Boreas, con Baars impegnato al flauto giapponese di bambù (shakuhachi), coinvolgono anche emotivamente con le loro atmosfere notturne ‘zeppe’ di paraconcretismi da quarto mondo.
Infine c’è Eurus, gemma incastonata nel tempo, con le atmosfere dilatate, i suoni lunghi e il fraseggio ridotto ai minimi termini, dove le linee melodiche sembrano seguire percorsi propri per intersecarsi armonicamente, secondo un concetto armolodico tipicamente colemaniano ancora difficile da comprendere (probabilmente lo stesso Ornette Coleman non l'ha mai compreso appieno). Potevano intitolarla Song For Our Successors e non avrebbe fatto una piega. Un’osservazione out per chi come me vede nei Paesi Bassi una sorta di Terra del Bengodi per l’improvvisazione: se un disco simile, registrato in studio nell’Ottobre 2011, ha dovuto fare un’anticamera di ben 2 anni, nonostante la garanzia rappresentata da un nome ormai affermato qual è Ab Baars, vuol dire che anche da quelle parti inizia ad esserci qualche problemino. ― Costante Berciu (Sands-zine)
Such volume and such roaring inspiration! When Ab Baars presses that tenor saxophone to his lips, deeply rumbling and bleating expressively, the blues of Frank Wright and Albert Ayler still simmering in those outer regions, it suddenly gets very quiet on the benches of the Evangelische Kirche of Nickelsdorf. He varies on staccato elements and hyper-intense screaming, only to switch to a softer, almost creamy tone later on, one that’s more aligned with the Zen-calm he exudes. Together with Holland-based bass player Meinrad Kneer and veteran drummer Bill Elgart (Paul Bley, Lee Konitz, etc), they only play sporadically, but it sounds as if they’re doing nothing else.
The bass player and drummer are constantly in touch with each other, using each other’s hints and suggestions, which leads to mesmerizing combinations of bowed strings and gently treated toms and sizzling cymbals, with now and then an abrupt, rumbling explosion. Baars created a more meditative atmosphere on his shakuhachi (which he’s been playing regularly since he bought it on a trip to Japan several years ago) and finally switches to clarinet, with sustained notes and hysterical peaks in which the ghost of John Carter is a fixed presence. And then I’m suddenly reminded of the influence Baars must’ve had on Vandermark’s clarinet playing as well.
The highlight takes place in the second extended piece, when a serene clarinet solo only gains expression and emotion, painfully beautiful and intensely howling and cuts to the bone with carving smears. That you can accomplish this without any form of preparation takes openness, a willingness to listen carefully and baggage, which these three display with class. Baars, Kneer and Elgart won over the entirely filled church with perhaps the most intensely concentrated concert of these four days. Mightily beautiful. So beautiful even, that we didn’t want to interrupt its reverberating beauty with the performance of Sqid, later in that same church. ― Guy Peters (Enola Magazine)
Tags: Ab Baars, Meinrad Kneer, Bill Elgart, Windfall, Evil Rabbit Records
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