On the Move

Among jazz fans, you can have a lot of fun arguing whether "European Jazz" is a useful counterpoint to the American tradition, an original supplement thereto or "is worth less than American jazz on the market" as it can be read in a Wikipedia forum. There is no doubt that there have been and are gifted musicians on the European side of the Atlantic, who have molded and formed jazz for decades. They have developed very unique playing styles by merging European music traditions with American influences. To give these pioneers of European jazz a stage was the idea for the series of articles "European Jazz Legends", which has been launched in the magazine Jazz thing in their 100th issue in September 2013. We can now look back on 10 issues. The symbolic stage has now become a real one, and it is in Gütersloh in the middle of Europe. Accompanying each edition of our magazine appearing five times a year, a concert planned especially for this occasion is being organized in cooperation with our label Intuition, the city of Gütersloh and National Public Radio WDR 3 with current protagonists of the series, hosted by Jazz thing author Götz Bühler. Each concert including panel discussion with Götz Bühler will be broadcast by WDR 3 at a later time, and the musical highlights of the concert will be released on a CD.
In other words, five concerts and five CDs in the series "European Jazz Legends" are planned for each year in the future. In addition, a book will be published, for which the article from the magazine will be revised and supplemented, among other things, to provide impressions from the concerts and discussions.

The CD of Dieter Glawischnig is the first publication in the "European Jazz Legends" series. We from Intuition are very proud of this and would like to thank all partners and especially the musicians – and hope that you enjoy this new series.

"I said to myself at the Festival in Roermond in 1968 that I would try it again with music for one year. And I'm still stuck in this year ... " Jasper van't Hof liked this quote from his portrait in the series" European Jazz Legends" so much that he immediately shared it on Facebook after the publication of Jazz thing 108 at the beginning of April 2015. Ever since the pianist, keyboardist and composer born in Enschede, The Netherlands, in 1947 quit his apprenticeship as a textile technician in favor of jazz, i.e., around 50 years ago, he has experimented in a beautiful new world of music between hard bop, free jazz and all forms of fusion, from African grooves to European reverence. "I can only be a jazz musician, because I know nothing," he said. "I know nothing! I just have great fun playing, and I rehearse like crazy. I love my instrument, and I have ideas that I try out again and again."

On the evening of May 15, 2015, Jasper van't Hof gave a taste of his sense-seeking playfulness in a full-length concert in Theater Gütersloh, excerpts of which have now been released thanks to close collaboration with the culture radio station WDR 3. He calls the band of the evening "Oeuvre", which also features the tenor saxophonist Harry Sokal from Austria, the Dutch bassist Stefan Lievestro and the Swiss "European Jazz Legend" Fredy Studer on drums. "It's a band with people who have experienced the same as I have in Europe: fusion, free and more!”