In my solo set Impropolis, I alternate bass clarinet improvisations with brief narrations related to my research topic: improvisation and politics. The following themes will be discussed: Martin Luther King Jr.’s improvised speech, Emperor Joseph II’s ban on improvisation in 1770, the Italian improvvisatori and improvvisatrici, and improvised versus writing-based speech in Athenian democracy.

For a review (in Finnish), see https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000009898031.html

For my research project, see https://www.uva.nl/profiel/r/o/j.j.roelofs/j.j.roelofs.html#Profile

 

 

 

My latest solo set features the intersection between music and left-wing politics. I offer improvised versions of protest, battle and folk songs written and/or performed by politically engaged artists such as Paul Robeson, Kurt Weill, and Frida Kahlo, with projected images and song lyrics.

Solo bass clarinet – Music & Short stories, based on Vivaldi, Wagner, Gershwin, Mahler, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Ellington. I played this set in Sils-Maria (Switzerland), Cangas (Galicia), and at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Here’s one introductory talk and one piece from my solo set at the Bimhuis on 18 May 2019. Recorded by Marc Schots for Bimhuis Radio. Listen to the whole set here.

 

 

 

I am very happy to be playing with this highly remarkable person.

The award-winning Dutch composer and bass clarinet player Joris Roelofs is also currently working on a PhD dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche, improvisation and the notion of freedom. On the album Rope Dance he is able to combine all of this, in a suite of twelve pieces inspired by Nietzsche – ‘by far the most musical of philosophers’ according to Roelofs. It is especially the parable of the tightrope walker in the opening section of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None’ that has provided him with inspiration for his own ‘Light-Footed Music for All and None’.

It is not surprising that Nietzsche’s thoughts about free spirits, liberated from conventional constraints and belief systems, resonate particularly well with musicians working with improvisation and across genres. Roelofs has therefore been able to gather a group of highly versatile colleagues from the Benelux jazz scene to perform his music: pianist Bram de Looze, bass player Clemens van der Feen and Martijn Vink on drums. The album also confirms the multi- faceted talents of bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, following previous recordings on BIS of classical, pre- Romantic and contemporary concertos, as well as hard rock covers with the group ORBI (the Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments).

Performance *****      Sonics ****½