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Cafe OTO
18–22 Ashwin St.
Dalston
London
44 20 7923 1231
cafeoto.co.uk
Bookings here trend toward the experimental
and avant garde in genres from jazz to rock.
Concerts happen almost every night.
Jazz Cafe
5 Parkway
London
44 20 7485 6834
thejazzcafelondon.com
The Jazz Cafe hosts a blend of jazz, hiphop,
blues, r&b and pop acts. Roy Ayers,
Jamie Cullum and Courtney Pine performed
recently.
PizzaExpress Jazz Club
10 Dean St.
London
44 20 7437 9595
pizzaexpress.com
Sitting below a PizzaExpress restaurant, this
venue hosts artists dabbling in a variety of
genres. The Soul Grenades, the Fontanelles
and the Mark Jennett Quartet played the
club recently.
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club
47 Frith St.
London
44 20 7439 0747
ronniescotts.co.uk
Rich in history, Ronnie Scott’s has been a
London beacon for international artists for
nearly 60 years, including legends like Jeff
Beck, Georgie Fame and Booker T. Jones.
For jazz-loving tourists in London, Ronnie
Scott’s is a “must-see” location on their
agenda. Upcoming shows include Manu
Katché (Jan. 9–10), Marcia Ball (Jan. 19–20)
and the James Carter Organ Trio (Jan. 21).
The Vortex
11 Gillett Square
London
44 20 7254 4097
vortexjazz.co.uk
With bookings steeped in contemporary
jazz, the Vortex has stood as one of the
top venues in London for more than two
decades. A jazz jam happens every Sunday.
The trio Sun of Goldfinger (guitarist David
Torn, saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer
Ches Smith) is scheduled for Jan. 22–23.
FINLAND
Rytmihäiriöklubi / Juttutupa
Säästöpankinranta 6
Helsinki
358 20 7424240
juttutupa.com
Presenting jazz inside the restaurant Juttutupa
since 1997, Rytmihäiriöklubi is an important
part of the jazz scene in Helsinki. Bookings
emphasize young Finnish jazz artists, and a
broad range of jazz styles are presented.
Storyville
Museigatan 8
Helsinki
358 50 363 2664
storyville.fi
Bimhuis Eschews Trends
Last October, 22 of Europe’s most diverse
and exciting improvisers aged 35 and
under converged in Amsterdam to
participate in the third iteration of a project
called the October Meeting. The last time the
collaborative summit took place was back in
1991, and the venue that hosted both events is
the legendary Bimhuis. The venue opened in
1974, filling a gaping hole in Amsterdam—
one of the most progressive jazz cities in all of
Europe—left by a number of canceled series in
the year prior.
Bimhuis in Amsterdam
Several years earlier, a number of musicians—including
drummer Han Bennink and
saxophonist Willem Breuker—had led something
of a putsch to expand the purview of
the Dutch jazz organization SJIN, or Stichting
Jazz. This led to the formation of a splinter
rock with deep affinities and associations for
improvised music—there has never been any
doubt that Bimhuis is first and foremost a jazz
venue. The original location underwent various
renovations during its history, including
group that championed improvised music: a major overhaul in 1984 to create an amphitheater
Beroepsvereniging voor Improviserende
feel. But the most tumultuous change
Musici (BIM).
came in 2005 when Bimhuis moved into new
Thanks to city funding, plans for a venue
dedicated to the new music—from the
Netherlands, around Europe and the United
States—were realized. The Bimhuis finally
opened in an old furniture showroom on
Oude Schans, just blocks from the Red Light
District. The rest, as they say, is history. Few
venues on either side of the pond have carved
out such an illustrious history, maintaining
inexorable ties to jazz tradition while boldly
embracing endless forward-looking iterations.
Naturally, the Bim became ground zero for
the vibrant jazz and improvised music scene
in Amsterdam, with countless performances
by Bennink, pianist Misha Mengelberg and
digs, high in the sky as a black box space literally
protruding from the new waterfront
Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, an institution devoted
primarily to contemporary classical music.
The high-tech space couldn’t help but lose
the gritty ambience of the original location,
but the amenities, sightlines and sound of the
current space are superb. “The main thing was
keeping everything that worked the same—
not to transform it into another venue, but
improve the old one, to keep the old audience
while adding new listeners,” van Riel said.
“The essential elements are the informality,
[the] relaxedness, combined with total concentration
on the stage. In terms of programming,
we got new possibilities: cooperation
their ICP Orchestra; Breuker’s free-wheeling
Kollektief; Maarten Altena’s Octet; and groups
led by musicians like Guus Janssen, Sean Bergin
and Nedly Elstak. But it also presented new talent
from the United States along with storied vets like
Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker and Von Freeman,
as well as the cream of crop of European improvisers:
Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker and Derek
Bailey. It also functioned as a vibrant meeting
place where new formations were born, musicians
checked out new talent, and conflicts were
born and (occasionally) solved.
Maintaining a cutting-edge performance
space for 42 years is no cakewalk, and almost
from the beginning the direction and programming
with Muziekgebouw to use each other’s spaces.
We do some big-name concerts there [where
the capacity is double the Bim’s 375], and we
cooperate in lots of projects. Starting in 2017
we’ll do an adventurous music festival that will
make use of the entire building.”
Many of the concerts at Bimhuis are
broadcast live and archived through its own
Bimhuis Radio (bimhuis.nl/bimhuisradio).
The original October Meeting took place
in 1987, with the second happening four years
later. Such endeavors have been important to
keeping the Bim viable. “I consider these projects
and a variety of ‘lab’ series essential to
of the Bimhuis has benefitted what I consider the main role for the Bimhuis,”
from the vision of Huub van Riel, who came
onboard in 1976. As the years passed, he rigorously
kept plugged in to developments, yet his
impeccable taste eschewed facile trends. Van
Riel’s track record is exemplary: While the programming
has made space for blues and world
van Riel said. “I feel that the place should be
looked at, by musicians and audiences alike, as
a tool much more than a goal in itself—to be
functional for the development of the music.
Facilitating a landscape in which adventure
and risk-taking will be encouraged and can be
music over the years—as well as avant-garde rewarded.”
—Peter Margasak
©EDDY WESTVEER
FEBRUARY 2017 DOWNBEAT 63