about impro in music

One of the more mysterious phenomena in the international live music sector is what happened with improvised music. To put it bluntly: wherever I went in recent years in cities across Europe I see the same thing. Audience: 60 years old or older, 90 percent male, and judging from appearance only: comfortably living in the higher regions of taxationtariffs, I would say.

I hate nostalgia, to see it in others or in my own inner parliament, but the way improvised music in the sixties hooked up with social change, had an urgency beyond its place in history, and demanded for reform is so inspiring and so far from most of the current ‘impro’ scene ..

Ofcourse there are happy exceptions from the rule, like what curator Tim Sprangers does in Amsterdam-North. Under the Sun Ra-tinged banner Space is the Place (1000+ concerts, and counting) Tim and his dedicated team really built up a new audience for improvised music. Whenever I go to one of his nights, formerly in De Ruimte (Amsterdam) and Willem Twee (Den Bosch), but also in Bimhuis, there is a totally different vibe, both on stage and in the audience.

In my experience, the thing with improvised music is: if it’s bad you want to get out of the room screaming and ready for suicide. But if it’s good… well, I don’t think there is any musical experience better than that. There is nothing more moving than a collection of musicians who – without a single visible clue – dive into the sound grammar beyond notation, beyond habit, beyond official music history, beyond what the critics say or write, beyond the expected. I’ve experienced many of these nights, in De Ruimte, Bimhuis, Rataplan, Sound in Motion/Dropa House/Summer Bummer Antwerpen, Paviljoen Ongehoorde Muziek Eindhoven, Music Meeting Nijmegen, Citadelic, North Sea Jazz Den Haag and Rotterdam, Transition Utrecht, Nona and Brand! Mechelen, KAAP and Ha Concerts Gent. And there really is nothing more soul moving than that. After a succesful impro concert, all the other concerts seem sometimes bloody boring.

Saturday march 29th we present The Bridge in Ha Concerts, Ghent.
With a stellar line-up: Rodrigo Amado (tenor sax), Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten(bass) and Gerry Hemingway (drums).

To read: Val Wilmer, As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (classic, available in reissue). Daniel Fischlin, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation (bought it in Donner Rotterdam for 9 euros).