Dick de Graaf trio AFGEZEGD

Dick de Graaf – tenor-, sopraansax; Stefan Lievestro – bas & Jamie Peet -drums

img_0230

Tenor-and soprano-saxophonist Dick de Graaf debuted 1986 with his acclaimed LP ‘Hot, hazy and humid’ (Limetree Records). Earlier he had won the Dutch Jazz Competition in 1981and he had presented himself as a striking soloist in the Amstel Octet, in John Clayton’s Tribute Big Band, Jeff Reynold’s Maiden Voyage Big Band and in the Frank Grasso Big Band.

Dick has performed at many national and international jazzstages ever since. He played with a.o. Chet Baker, Misha Mengelberg, Jasper van ’t Hof, Kenny Weeler, Tom Harrell, Benny Golson, Billy Hart, Toumani Diabaté, Jeremy Monteiro and Erkan Ogur and toured festivals and clubs in Europe, South and West Africa, the USA, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, USA, Taiwan and Canada.

As a bandleader, composer, arranger and self-managing artist dedicated to jazz – in his definition “a host of elements from all kinds of music that surrounds us”- Dick de Graaf recorded and produced more than 25 CD’s that received positive response by both public and press.

His Challenge Records awarded CD’s ‘Sailing’ and ‘New York Straight Ahead’ got enthusiast critics in the important music magazine Down Beat.

His project ‘The Burning of the Midnight Lamp: Dick de Graaf plays Jimi Hendrix’ also appeared to be very succesful. With his Septet he has been drawing full houses in Holland, Germany, Austria, Ireland and Finland.

Another example of his broad musical horizon is the project he recorded in Mali with a group of young musicians from Bamako: the CD ‘Djigui: les Sofas de Bamako featuring Dick de Graaf’. June 2000 this group made his European debut during the Festival Mundial in Tilburg. On his hybrid superaudio CD ‘Four Winds’ he continues his tracking of multicultural music. On this CD a sextet with a.o. Inga Juuso (Samiland), Moussa Diallo and Mamadou Diabaté (Mali) plays a handful of Dick’s originals.

2001 Dick released his internationally acclaimed album ‘SOUND ROOTS Dick de Graaf meets Peter Martin, Roland Guerin and Adonis Rose Trio in New Orleans’. As a follow-up of this recording he initiated his EUROPEAN SOUNDROOTS QUARTET with which he toured Europe, Indonesia and Singapore.

In june 2003 the CD SCHUBERT IMPRESSIONS FOR JAZZ QUINTET was presented at the Northsea Jazz Festival followed by an international concert tour. Following his Schubert Impressions, Dick presented another jazz-meets-classic project A TOUCH OF BELA in Hungary during the Esztergom Bela Bartok Festival in july 2005. June 2007 he was commissioned to write and play his Bach Reflections at the well-known Bach Feste in Leipzig.

Among his more recent projects are Trio Nuevo: Jazz Meets Tango (2006-2009), his acoustic Dick de Graaf Quartet (2007-2009), his powerjazz quartet CRY BABY! (2009-2010), his solo improvisations with Bach’s cello suites (started in 2010) and his trio project Out Of The Blues: Celebrating the Music Of Oliver Nelson (2012-2013).

December 2012 Dick performed as a guest soloist with the acclaimed Doelen Ensemble. He was commissioned by artistic leader of this contemporary ensemble composer Peter-Jan Wagemans to freely improvise the flute parts of J.S. Bach’s second orchestral suite on the tenor and soprano saxophones.

September 2013 he was invited by Dutch composer Jacob TV to participate in the Dutch Wind Ensemble (Nederlands Blazers Ensemble) and perform his succesful multi-media opera THE NEWS.

Dick is co-founder, artistic director and composer of the 12 piece Clazz Ensemble. During more than 6 years of hard work this ensemble produced three different projects which were all documented on CD’s. ‘Adventures’ (2009) and ‘Federico on Broadway’ (2012) were recorded live in the Amsterdam Bimhuis. ‘Delta Suite’ (2010) was recorded in Concertstudio Middelburg. The Clazz Ensemble’s most recents projects are ‘Monk Inside Out’ and a quintet line-up performing new compositions by de Graaf which are inspired by compositional techniques by French composer Olivier Messiaen.

With his saxophone mates from the Clazz Ensemble Dick has recently started a new saxophone quartet called Dicke Luft. The quartet’s first job was the recording of Dick’s composition ‘Carillon’ which consists of 12 short movements which  are inspired by the model of the Tone Clock by Dutch composer Peter Schat. The CD ‘Carillon’ will be released in autumn 2013 on Red Piano Records in the USA.

Dick de Graaf is a part-time teacher of saxophone and ensembles at the jazz department of the Codarts University of the Arts in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is an endorser and international clinician for Rico Reeds.

http://www.dickdegraaf.com/

entree: € 10