Last weekend I attended the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and it was just beyond awesome. It's all indoors, in this great convention center that is set up to handle maybe a dozen concerts at the same time. I was going to go to Montreux but thankfully a guitar player here hipped me to North Sea. Check out this list of people I saw:

Lee Ritenour - With Patrice 'Forget Me Not' Rushen, a great pianist, did 'Forget Me Not' but no breakdown
Joe Bonnamassa - Never heard him, disappointed, left, found Luxembourg girl
BB King - still has great moments, but sometimes the motor ain't what it used to be, still great
Randy Brecker - CTI all star band, Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Hubert Laws, only 15 minutes cuz of Luxembourg girl
Roy Hargrove - RH factor - just killed for maybe my favorite 15 minutes of the festival
Joshua Redmond - hilarious to watch, awesome to listen to, slayed

Richard Bona - clinic
Charlie Haden - w/Brad Mehldau - transporting
George Duke - killed, maybe my overall favorite, what a band
Richard Bona w/Gonzalo Rubaconda, an accordianist - Bona is so Jaco-y

Derek Trucks - saw him often w/Gov't Mule when younger, meh
Chucho Valdez - should have seen more of him instead of Trucks
Roy Haynes w/Patttuci - spent too much time talking with Luxembourg girl but hey, priorities, Pattituci had a great blues solo piece
Raphael Saadiq - girls love him, very pop but still good, his bass playing was meh
Steve Winwood - still has it, played some old stuff

All that for a 190 euro ticket. The food was great and not overpriced - shocking for a concert. For another 120 euro or so I could have seen Chaka Khan, Toots Thielmans, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove big band, etc.

They hate bass players: Bona clinic, Charlie Haden and SMV were all running concurrently.

I missed: SMV, Esperanza Spalding, Avishai Cohen, saw a bit of Erykah Badu, 2 minutes of Adele, even less of Duffy, David Sanborn, Bill Laswell, McCoy Tyner and more.

3 days of 8 hours of music a day. It was really inspiring to see all these great players. I really wonder: why can't we have more of these things, like every weekend?

Things did not work out with Luxembourg girl, shockingly, cuz I thought I had it sewn up. Long story short: scheduled to meet after Badu, she claims she was there, says I looked right at her and kept walking, thought I snubbed her. I waited 45 minutes for her dumb ass - seriously, she was like a 9 out of 10, no joke - thought she stood me up. Not the first or last time. Ran into her the next day, looked right at her, she nodded at me, didn't recognize her again, finally tapped her on the shoulder to mack anew, it was her. Vibe was gone, she was pissed about list night, said she was all excited after Badu and then I dissed her like that which of course I didn't just tap me on the shoulder or something I was looking for bangs and your hair was up I made a mistake get a grip lady. But the thrill was gone, trust wasn't there, went all downhill rather slowly and just couldn't turn that train around, she wants to be just friends and c'est la vie.

To hell with her. Had two glasses of wine aloft as Winwood sang 'I'm wasted and I can't find my home' as the festival closed. Went to the afterparty at the Hilton Hotel, I offer the bouncer 10 then 20 euro to get in, he says 'not even for 100', I said 'what if I had a big rack', he says 'that would help.' But my buddy, who is on the last night of a 3 week trip, will not be denied and we get Jamie Cullen, apparently a popular pop/jazz singer, maybe 5 feet 2, terrible green complexion - he really needs to change his diet - to get me and a buddy in - a real nice guy.

Inside I meet Wynton Marsalis' bassist, thought he was a trombone player, multiple people more skilled than I jammed 'til 6 in the morn, including Wynton's bassist who starts laying down a great hip hop bass line around 5 and I say 'this trombone player is a really good bassist' and my buddy, who I met at the hostel and invented an iPhone app called iBone, sets me straight and I think, yeah, he was pretty interested in my old band for a trombone player and maybe I shouldn't have talked about Ozzie Guillen with this NYC Boricua but whatever, because I was macking on a cute perhaps-38 year old gal who bought me a couple beers, and then after the hip hop started and we departed to smoke a cigarette this other Dutch bassist, who just killed on a 30-minute 'Night in Tunisa' jam and showed me that 'no ZZ, you will not be joining the jam tonight', tells me this gal is somebody on Dutch TV, and then five minutes later he gives her a ride home and the hip hop sounds not bad with the live band and no turntable, and all the while Luxembourg gal was driving back to her event planner job and her catlike blue-green eyes that have that crazy brightness only vegetarians get and I say whatever to her I don't care if we get together for lunch when you visit Paris in a couple months or not, if I keep working maybe one day I'll be playing at that afterparty you missed but I ain't mad atchya.

I will be back next year. Real nice town, I recommend the Stayokay hostel - really great, 40 euro a night, and the building it's in is famous for it's modern architecture, and is worth visiting just for that.

Richard Bona clinc: I asked him, 'What do you recommend bassists to practice?' He said that you have to sing what you play, with the goal being total oneness with the instrument, as YOU are the instrument, after all. You have to be able to hear something and know exactly where to play it on the fretboard and sing it, and he's not talking about perfect pitch.

I have heard so many great players say the same thing, but he had a unique spin on it, I thought. I don't think I'm explaining it well, but it really hit home to me: YOU are the instrument. Whatever you want to sing, you have to be able to play, and that's oneness with the instrument. He said he's not a singer, but his mother was, and he grew up around singing all the time, and he's not a singer but he sang some licks and then played them exactly on the bass. Seems like a nice guy, good sense of humor.

I have to put up some spam for this iBone app later - this guy I met at the hostel created an application that is basically as close as you can get to playing the trombone on your iPhone. Really cool, quite a phenomenal learning tool for 'boners.'

I didn't take many chances with who I saw at the festival and see people I didn't know but there were just so many great players to see that my schedule was set before I left. What a great festival!

Forgot to add:

Saw Amos Lee - he's a folk/semi-blues singer. Good voice, my old guitarist likes him and he's good but meh.

Candy Dulfer is Dutch, apparently, and she was the Saturday night main attraction and WOW, is she attractive. I caught just a bit and she does her funk thing pretty well still - she's on Maceo Parker's 'Live on Planet Groove.' it's pretty amazing to see this stunning beauty get all funky in a dress and high heels.

Rachelle Ferrell played with George Duke and she is such a vocalist she almost defies description. The female Al Jarreau? Wow.

If anyone knows of similar festivals in europe please let me know as I'm new here.

Apparently it's Jamie Cullum, and hats off to him for letting me carry his bag inside to the hotel and saying we were with him.

Nice review. Sorry you spent a lot of your time chasing skirts. You can do that anywhere.

Why not come to the Monterey Jazz Festival here in California?
It's September 18-20.

LOL, spoken like a music teacher!

The Marsalis tromboners mentioned that festival last night, said they'll be there and in Berkley too if you're interested. Thanks for the link - I'll check it out and put in on my calendar. SF is far away, and I am poorly paid, but hopefully one day. It's probably a good reason to travel to Cali.

Yeah that's a pretty sweet festival lineup. I was thinking about a small vacation in September...probably too pricy, but definitely on my radar now, thanks.

Very cool...beats the heck out of the annual wankfest in the park by my house when the B-E-R-K-E-L-L-E-I-E-Y-E kids come out to impress the locals.

There are two places neither of which is called Berkley.

Berklee College is the jazz music school in Boston.

Berkeley is a city in Northern California near San Francisco where the University of California at Berkeley is located. That's where I live and where I went to school. The school is called Cal by people who go there, California on the sports pages and Berkeley in other places around the planet.

We used to have a great jazz festival here, too.

There are a few other places named Berkeley around the country, such as in Illinois, Michigan (spelled Berkley), Missouri, and New Jersey (Berkeley Heights). There's one in England, too.

Yes, spelling counts. You just got an F on your posting, Davio.

Great review ZZ. Must go one year.

Davo

Fixed.

...and you're an F on my posting.

The Monterey Jazz Festival arena seats sell out early. There are always grounds tickets and the arena stage artists sometimes will do shows there as well.

Wally

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes up two weekends in April every year. It usually rains, and they hold it at the circus grounds. There is so much music there it's crazy! Who knows how they pay the musicians? Here's the link:
http://www.nojazzfest.com/
None of the others even compare!!

I've performed there a few times during jazz week in the Ponderosa Stomp. This year it was at the House of Blues. I performed there with my wife, Lady Bo. It really completes the week down there and gets a lot of media coverage by those in town for the jazz festival.
http://www.ponderosastomp.com/ponderosa_stomp_8.php

http://www.ponderosastomp.com/music_more.php/102/Lady+Bo

Wally

Glad y'all liked the review, many thanks.

And thanks for the NO jazz fest - it's on my calendar. I bet there is an insane amount of good music there.

(checked riggerousely for spelling - 'y'all' is colloquial and just so handy)

Hi all, some more info on these festivals. JVC used to sponsor a number of them (members of the Festival Network), but apparently they cut off funding for this year and CareFusion stepped in to sponsor those in Newport, Chicago, Monterey, Sydney, and Paris. http://www.carefusionjazz.com/festivals.php

Why CareFusion? They say it's because they discovered some med schools develop their student's listening skills by having them listen to jazz (http://bit.ly/feQzL). I hope that's the reason and not that they expect the festivals to only attract a senior audience that's interested in their products.

Anyway, doesn't matter as long as the line-ups are good and the tickets aren't too much. Though not on the same level of North Sea or New Orleans, Newport also looks pretty good:
http://www.jazzfestival55.com/music-schedule.html

Sounds like I should get my lazy *ss to Rotterdam next year ! I was in Italy this year, so at least I have that as an excuse
How's France working out for you?

Oh, and you know what they say about women: can't live with 'em.

Hey EPB, totally worth getting on the Thalys train.

France is going great, thanks for asking. Contrary to popular to popular belief, the french are really nice. I've had a ton of people go out of there way for this stranger in a strange land. All you have to do is ask them if they speak english in french and they are totally friendly.

Got a job, got a work permit, so I am not broke and homeless - things are going well.

Those rich Luxembourg gals - they're stuck up anyway!

Back to working on my french.

Good to hear! At work I've met a few Frenchies, and a lot of my colleagues are from the Walloon (French-speaking) part of Belgium, and they are all great people.

I've never been to Paris but I was on holiday in Nice last year, and I could not help but notice that EVERY bar had live music EVERY evening. Made me wish I could retire early (and wealthy) and move there

PS: Just clicked your MySpace link, that is some awesome grooving going on, and solid bass playing too Excellent !

Glad you liked my old band - many thanks!

One of the problems with Paris is they have a lot of noise ordinance restrictions. A lot of places won't use acoustic drum kits cuz neighbors complain a lot (this is france, after all).

I was sitting in with this AC/DC type group called 'Bang Everything That Moves' (terrible, I know) and they had a steady Saturday night gig for a few months until the cops shut them down recently because of complaints, and they use an electronic drum kit. They say this happens all the time.

Musicians I've met have generally said Paris is not a great town to get gigs - not musician friendly. Whatreyagonnado? Great to hear about Nice tho - have to check out Nice sometime.