Eric Vloeimans Trio plays fresh, awesome jazz
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Where were you, Jakarta jazz lovers, when a jazz group from the Netherlands mesmerized a handful of people at an almost-empty Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Tuesday night?
Unless you were embroiled in a matter of life and death, you should regret (for quite a long time) that you missed an awesome performance of the Eric Vloeimans Trio.
And to you too, Mr. Peter Gontha: Where were you? In atonement for your absence, you should, perhaps, invite them to next year's Java Jazz festival because the trio deserves appreciation from a wider audience.
Fortunately, Jakarta jazz lovers will have a second chance, at Erasmus Huis on Friday at 7:30 p.m., to hear Vloeimans on trumpet, Ernst Reijseger on cello and Anton Goudsmit on guitar performing their refreshing jazz.
Playing 13 compositions, the trio revealed the true meaning of "performance" as they handled their instruments like three boys playing with their favorite toys.
Don't get it wrong, though; they played good jazz, well.
Reijseger on cello won the audience's hearts by turning the classical, bulky cello into a bass, percussion and guitar instrument.
He produced classic cello sounds by using the bow but at other times put it on his lap and plucked the strings as if it were a bass.
Another time, he drummed his fingers on the cello body to produce a jazzy beat.
He really wowed the audience when he left the stage to walk between the rows of seats, playing his cello beautifully, and crooning like his instrument.
Meanwhile, with his awesome guitar playing, Goudsmit, who has collaborated with Vloeimans in a number of albums, also received warm applause from the audience.
Vloeimans, who wrote most of the numbers performed in the concert, played melancholic and upbeat compositions with the same high level of accomplishment.
The trio's humor never failed to amuse the audience who sometimes could not restrain a happy laugh when, for example, they did a clumsy emulation of a tap dance to produce an upbeat rhythm.
They also amused the Indonesian audience when they played an interesting rendition of the Javanese song, Dondong Opo Salak.
Most of the songs played that night were taken from the trio's first album, Fugimundi. The trio played numbers from the Fugimundi album at last year's North Sea Jazz Festival.
However, they also played a few brand-new pieces, which will be released in their next album.
Vloeimans gave the Indonesian title Saya Terkesan (I'm Impressed) to one of the new songs.
"I'll likely keep that in the next album: I like the sound 'saya terkesan'," he said afterwards.
Vloeimans, a frequent performer at the North Sea Jazz Festival, and who studied jazz and classical trumpet at the Rotterdam Conservatorium, previously produced eight albums with other musicians, including Italian pianist Rita Marcotuli and Swedish bassist/cellist Lars Danielsson.
In 1998 he recorded Bitches and Fairy Tales featuring jazz stars John Taylor, Marc Johnson and Joey Baron, which won an Edison Award in the Netherlands.