Ab Baars Trio: powerfully appealing

21 / 02 / 2007 | Redactie

The joyfully obstinate, yet powerfully appealing music that Ab Baars manages to lure out of his sax and clarinet is as colorful as it is astonishing. He surprises with the broad amalgam of sounds he produces. Baars is not trying to impress with his evidently superior technique; no, he expresses himself in a very natural sounding way. He does so in a trio, existing for over 15 years. And when musicians have played together that long, everything comes together intuitively, even when the music is improvised. With Wilbert de Joode (a regular guest at JPD) and Martin van Duynhoven, the trio consists of three internationally acclaimed musicians. Baars himself has played with dozens of hot shots of progressive jazz all over the world. Winning the prestigious Dutch Boy Edgar Prize, in 1989, surely wasn't an accident.

As far as the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (March 25, 1995) is concerned, Baars embodies `the best typically Dutch improvised music has to offer. The reeds player, nowadays concentrating on clarinet and tenor sax, has pulled a musical language out of the sound world of American bop and free jazz, and out of 20th century composers like Stravinsky en Messiaen, that filters emotions through intelligence, humor, and Dutch hard-headedness.'

De Volkskrant continues: `Baars never sounds ordinary, but always self-evident. Although he seldom uses recognizable song forms or ongoing swing rhythms, the music stays catchy, because it is stripped to the essence and clearly presented. The listener will not be overwhelmed by volume, acrobatics or effects, but is surely not left outside either.' …Fortunately, because the Amphitheater at the Vrijhof Cultuurcentrum, with its stunning acoustics, offers just the intimacy to draw the audience into the seemingly infinite musical fantasy world of this trio.

Monday 5 February

8:15 pm

Vrijhof Amphitheater

The Ab Baars Trio (Foto: Jean van Lingen)