Traeben on tour

Splended days with Traeben, playing lots of gigs, trying out new repertoire for our new album, and looking forward to the upcoming tours! Here’s our tourlist:

VinnieVibes @ Virus (AVRO)

Yesterday we were with VinnieVibes at the Schouwburg Rotterdam, to be part of the Virus show of that day. Virus is a radio and internet program with lots of live music, both classical and jazz, with a very fresh taste. Yesterday they gave carte blanche to the famous Matangi quartet, and they invited us te be part of the show. We played a couple of our own tunes, one piece that Vinnie arranged for Matangi and VinnieVibes together, and I had to explain to Vivienne van den Assem what an Udu was and how it works. You can see the whole broadcast here:

Traeben in DK

Last week Traeben played in Denmark. We play a lot actually, and we’ve got a pretty grand tour schedule, and the name is Danish, but this actually was the first time we played Denmark!

We played in Herning, in a jazzclub called Fermaten. It’s a big, beautiful club that programs internationally (Steve Lukather played the week after) and that has a great atmosphere. Of course we were pretty new to the audience there as well, but as we spoke to people afterwards they liked it very much and appreciated us coming to Denmark. So for everybody who was there: thank you for supporting us!

Click HERE to see a little impression of the concert on facebook.

KKBB feat. Freek de Jonge in the Bimhuis

This monday at the Bimhuis, check it out!

Wrecking Crew

Due to a friend of mine I got tipped off for checking out the ‘Wrecking Crew’. Nobody knows them, but everybody’s heard them. They were the guys in the ’60 that were doing all the studiowork in L.A., multiple sessions in one day, sometimes even a whole record in a day. To name just a few: drummers Earl Palmer and Hal Blaine (who recorded 35000 tracks in twentyfive years), guitarist Tommy Tedesco and Howard Roberts, saxophonist Plas Johnson and many more. And where we know bands as the Beach Boys, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas etc, they were not always the ones playing on their own albums..

In 2008 a documentary was made about the Wrecking Crew. Unfortunately it was never released, but luckily I could get hold of a copy. It’s great hearing the guys talk about those days, about the hits, and finding out what great musicians they were. They were incredible sightreaders, but a lot of times the only thing they got was a leadsheet with chords. And to find out that most of the famous riffs and hooks that really made a song happen were created on the spot – incredible!

So if you ever by any chance run into this documentary – GO AND WATCH IT!

www.wreckingcrew.tv

KKBB januari 14th @ the Bimhuis

Koning van Katoren

This week a new Dutch movie had its premiere, called Koning van Katoren. The movie is based on a book by Jan Terlouw, that became very popular after it’s first release, and now there is also this movie with Mingus Dagelet and Abbey Hoes.

The score of the film is written by Bart Westerlaken, who chose to use different spheres for different parts of the movie. And one of them was bigband-style. So a couple of weeks ago we went into the studio with Bart and the Konrad Koselleck Bigband to record a part of the filmscore, and since the 1st of December the results are to be heard in the movietheaters all over Holland. The music turned out great, from energy bigband swing to cinematic effects – it’s all there. There’s even a scene accompanied by a drumsolo..