Drummers Double Bill

Review from Downtown Music Gallery:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL & JAN WOLKERS - "2 Texel" (BVHAAST 0306)

This is the second disc from the Drummers Double Bill ensemble and it features Rob Verdurmen & Arend Niks on drums, Arjen Gorter on double bass (from the Breuker Kollektief), Corrie Van Binsbergen on guitar, George Pancraz on trumpet, Joost Buis on trombone and Rutger Van Otterloo & Frans Vermeersen on saxes. For their second engaging disc, the Drummers Double band collaborated with the poet Jan Wolkers, who contributed five "poems about life". The music was recorded live on two nights in January of 2006 and Jan's reading of his poems was added afterwards. Although I was previously familiar with only three of the eight members here (Gorter, Buis & Vermeersen), the octet are a particularly spirited bunch.

"IJskoman Op Kook" opens and blends tight, quick jazz and rock elements with a strong squealing solo from Mr. Otterloo on bari sax and played with great spirit. The last section slows down to a rather circus-like ending. The next five pieces feature the poetry of Jan Wolkers, yet the words are used minimally. The music on "The Beginning" is quirky and fun and covers a variety of styles. This music is difficult to pin down since it covers a wide variety of influences and keeps changing in unexpected ways. Most of it seems written with very little room for improv, except for a few short solos. Much of this music has that humorous quality than is so often found in the ICP Orchestra and the Breuker Kollektief. I dig on "Broodbeleg", when a section complex marching music appears out of nowhere, then Arjen takes a great acoustic bass solo, followed by a fine trumpet solo by Mr. Pancraz. The music seems to have a story like quality, as the scenery changes with each poem excerpt. Guitarist Corrie Van Binsbergen takes a great (Zappa-like) fusion guitar solo on the slow, sly piece, "The Wrong Place". "No U-Turn" is a lovely, laid-back piece featuring some fine trombone, soprano sax and trumpet, a well-constructed work. "Wake Up Call" is a thoughtful drum duet and finally "Adam the Jazzant Is Back" is a fitting ending with tight, frisky, slightly funky arrangements and another spirited guitar solo.

For those of you scared away by the thought of the spoken word used here, it is quite minimal, not in English and the music is wonderful throughout.

- Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery, NYC, October 2006

Review from JazzFlits:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL & JAN WOLKERS - "2 Texel" (BVHAAST CD 0306)

Review from Jazzenzo Jazz Magazine:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL & JAN WOLKERS - "2 Texel" (BVHAAST CD 0306)

Review from Het Parool - Kunst, dinsdag 29 augustus 2006:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL & JAN WOLKERS - "2 Texel" (BVHAAST CD 0306)

Review from Jazz Weekly:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL - "S.O.S." (BVHAAST CD 0703)

Those jovial Dutchmen are at it again. Somehow while a good percentage of free jazzers in other countries appear to specialize in grim faces and toplofty attitudes, the Dutch - like the Italians - are able to add insouciance to their improvisations. Holland also seems to be fertile soil to nurture little big bands - think of the ICP Orchestra Big Bent Braam and the Willem Breuker Kollektief - a tradition that continues with this fine group. Drummers Double Bill (DDB) is pre-eminently a jazz band, put together as a busman's holiday by Rob Verdurmen, Breuker's regular drummer, and fellow skins specialist Arend Niks, who leads No Can Do with saxist Frans Vermeerssen. Besides Verdurmen, this group features two longtime Kollektief regulars, woodwind player Alex Coke and bassist Arjen Gorter. The rest of DDB is filled out by musicians with mixed allegiance to rock and jazz. There's guitarist Corrie van Binsbergen, who leads her own fusion band with Niks in the drum chair, and trumpeter Jan Van Duikeren, who is also part of the horn section of Smooth Jazz saxist Candy Dulfer's group. Providing the bottom is soprano and baritone saxophonist Rutger van Otterloo, who plays in the funk-jazz formation, Future Shock, Big Bent Braam, and is part of a saxophone quartet with Vermeerssen and Bite The Gnatze (BTG)'s Jorrit Dijkstra. Buis has also been in the ICP and leads Astronotes, a Sun Ra tribute band.

So what is the result of this varied experience? Sounds on the CD call on a multiplicity of traditions, but manage to remain - with some exceptions - impressively improvised and distinctively Dutch. "S.O.S." needs no explanation. There's enough percussion work on "S.O.S." to make up for anyone's lack of taste, although DDB too has an American antecedent. DDB often sounds like the house band at the Savoy dance hall or participants at a Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) jam session. This is apparent as early as "Shopping on Sunday". A bouncing good-time tune, it features one of the drummers coming on like Chick Webb on the sizzle cymbal, tuneful riffing horns, and a soprano sax solo that sounds like Benny Goodman playing the clarinet. Throw into the mix some pedal point exposure from Van Otterloo on baritone saxophone, and with both drummers cross-sticking and rebounding, all concerned seem to be having a wonderful time. "Kortanjke - Snivellin' Simon" finds the two trap men in harness as a sort of updated Gene Krupa versus Buddy Rich showstopper, filled with bounces, ruffs, flams and paradiddles as well as reverberating ride cymbals. Somehow adding a reggae inflection to the Swing face, the piece ends with guitarist van Binsbergen paying homage to a completely different decade, with a faux Jimi Hendrix solo that features long-lined slide tones, some distorted fuzztones and wailing uptempo explosions. "Cannery Ball" sounds as if the percussionists are working out on thunder sheet and balophone, with the guitarist moving from rocky reverbs to Herb Ellis-like bluesy bent notes and Buis scoring with an output that combines the facility of J.J. Johnson with glass-rattling properties. He's a man who started off playing with a post office brass band in Alpeldoorn, after all. This fanfare experience serves him well, especially on a tune like "GoGoGo", which also makes room for Coke, a native-born Texas tenor saxophonist. He jumps out of the temperate arrangement with vibrating smears and flutter tonguing in the way Sal Nistico used to serve as the sparkplug for Woody Herman's Herds. Making his way around the horn, Coke trys on different shadings and note patterns, while the other horns, especially Van Duikeren, hint at silvery grace notes, but stay out of his way. Elsewhere the eight may adapt some post-modern frippery to the JATP formula with open-horned gutbucket work from Buis, judicious pressure on the wah-wah pedal from van Binsbergen and a final track that is built around kettle drum tones and intermittent chime resonation - origin unknown. But the most memorable - and longest at almost nine minutes - track, "Who Will Accept This", sticks pretty close to the expected Bop/Swing jam session conception. A bit of a rondo when it comes to solo space and with Ellington reflections in the horns, it's a light swinger than moves adagio and no faster. Featuring one drummer - probably Niks who wrote it -- replicating Han Bennink's brushes-on-snare technique, seconding guitar lines and what could be the only appearance of a whirl drum, it's mostly a showcase for Van Otterloo. With a dewy, virile tone that's tougher than Gerry Mulligan's, but not as astringent as Pepper Adams, he moves through the piece at a steady pace, only rarely making recourse to smears and overblowing.

There you have it, a CD by a tip-top octet that offer flow and festivity in equal measure.

- Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly, February 2004

Review from JazzMan:
DRUMMERS DOUBLE BILL & JAN WOLKERS - "2 Texel" (BVHAAST 0306)