North Sea Jazz Festivals 1981 - 1983

アウトフォーカス North Sea Jazz Festivals 1981 - 1983

North Sea Jazz Festivals July 1981 - 1982 - 1983 In 1981, 20 years of age, I visited my first North Sea Jazz Festival which was held in The Hague in what is now known as the World Forum but was called the Congresgebouw at the time. At the time, I had been interested in jazz and really starting to discover the jazz of the early 1960s and was playing around with photography without having found a real topic to photograph yet. I was pretty much blown away by the

I enjoyed some great concerts, looking back at the programmes of the time makes it clear that I was very lucky that so many excellent musicians where together in that one building for these few days, but I also missed some excellent concerts; at the time some of the musicians I now idolize just didn’t mean much to me yet. The concerts would start at 6PM and run until 4AM. I think the organisation ran a tight ship and there wasn’t much delay in the programming, the times were pretty much kept. I would typically arrive in The Hague

tickets. Photo first page: Don Cherry with his trademark Pocket trumpet at the Trumpet-No-End jam-session at the North Sea Jazz Festival – Friday 8 July 1983. Talk about concentration. Photo top right, same jam session: Jon Faddis, Dizzy Gillespie, Ack van Rooyen. Photo bottom right: from the “Introducing... Bobby McFerrin Von & Chico Freeman Quintet.” concert on Saturday 17 July 1982. Photo to the left: Cecil Taylor at the piano on Saturday 17 July 1982. Photo below, Albert Collins & The Ice Breakers, Friday 8 July 1983. Copyright text and images © 1981, 1982, 1983, 2019 Hans ter Horst — All rights reserved

music but also with the freedom we had to photograph the musicians during their concerts. With 9 concerts pretty much playing in parallel all the time, it took some time to figure out that it was much better to pick my key concerts in advance and arrive early to get a place right upfront from where it was much easier to photograph the musicians instead of running from one concert to the other and arriving at the back all the time. I’m not sure how it is handled at the current venue, but at the time it was perfectly fine to photography as long as you didn’t use any flash photography.

in the late afternoon, walk from the train station to the Congresgebouw and planned my evening as sometimes the schedules had changed. I quickly learned to stay away from the beer to avoid sleepiness after midnight and also learned to concentrate on few concerts and not run from one hall to the other to catch as many names as possible but not really got a chance to absorb the music. When the last concerts where done, I would walk back to the train station, which is less than an hour’s walk and got on the first train that would be waiting for another hour at the station and slept until the conductor came to check the

Archie Shepp Photo at the bottom of this page: To celebrate 40 years of North Sea Jazz Festival, the Dutch broadcaster NTR showed a programme on the NPO3 channel on 5 July 2015 which highlighted recent and classic concerts from the rich history of the festival. One of the very special classic concerts was the Archie Shepp Quartet with Johnny Meijer on jazz accordion in 1981. As became apparent, saxophonist Hans Dulfer had brought Shepp and Meijer together and it had been the only time they had played together.

approached by the bassist in this photo, Harry Emmery, to supply him with a high-resolution copy of this image for his own archives as he had no images of this concert either. Sent me a CD of his latest record in gratitude which was much appreciated.

The other photos on this spread are from the Archie Shepp Quartet on Friday 8 July 1983.

A few days before the taping of the program I was approached by the team behind the programme to confirm that it was my photo and asking permission whether they could use the photo. I could supply them with a high-res version of the image and allowed them to use the photo if they could give me full credit. I can image that not many photos of this event are still around 34 years after the fact and I was happy to oblige. They generously left my photo and my name up for the duration they discussed this concert with Hans Dulfer which impressed my family. But this is not the first time this photo was highlighted. Years earlier I was

The Sun Ra Arkestra A Sun Ra concert is something you will remember for the rest of your life: it is a mix between a big-band free-jazz concert, a religious ceremony and a trip to outer space. Long before UFO abduction stories had been heard of, Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount) had become convinced that his roots lay on the planet Saturn which he visited by spaceship and he developed “cosmic” philosophies and lyrical poetry as he preached “awareness” and peace above all in his music. No need to point out that the concert of Sun Ra and his Arkestra that I visited on the Roof Garden scene at the North Sea Jazz Festival on Saturday 17 July 1982 was quite the spectacle with the space scene, poem recitals and space costumes. And the music was great too! Before visiting the concert, I’m ashamed to confess, I was only vaguely aware of the Akestra but I had heard enough to be curious and got to the concert early enough to be able to sit upfront, or so I thought! I found out that this Roof Garden concert was a highlight of the evening and others had showed up even earlier than me so I was sitting further away than I had intended. On the photos to the right: Photo above: On baritone saxophone, wearing sunglasses, is Danny Ray Thompson. The alto saxophonist is Marshall Allen. And of course: Sun Ra taking in the standing ovation! Photo below: The bass clarinettist is (probably) Eloe Omoe.

Photographing the concerts To photograph the concerts, I was using my Pentax ME that I’m still using and a cheap Tamron 70-150mm f/3.55.6 zoom lens; nothing to brag about but it was what I had and what I had to use. The first year I started off with some Kodak TRI-X at 400, grossly underestimating the dim lighting situations I would encounter. The next years I looked around what was available and spent money on ISO 1600 film which of course improved my results a lot! Metering was of course an issue and I had to improvise as my Pentax ME camera did not have a spotmeter, exposure lock or even a manual operation. A bit of gut-feeling can take you far and I used the exposure correction dial to over-expose where appropriate to make the most of it. None of these photos are any good of course, but I had a lot of fun shooting them while enjoying some amazing concerts! If only I had my current Pentax MZS camera with my Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX APO lens! With a modern camera, I would take a spot meter reading off something that I would consider neutral grey and use that as manual setting and not worry about exposure anymore unless the lighting changes. This would allow me to make better compositions in camera and not lock every subject plonk in the middle of the frame as I use to have to or risk overexposing the negative horribly because of the dark backgrounds. As for the lens, with a lens that gives me f/2.8 for the whole of the zoom range I would have a much better bokeh and faster exposure times at the same time. If only I could travel back in time and visit those exact same concerts to shoot them again! These photos probably would look worse! Photo to the right: Hans Dulfer at the North Sea Jazz Festival – Friday 8 July 1983

The Johnny Griffin Quartet

Where are we now?

Well known for his fast playing tenor sax style, the Saturday 17 July 1982 concert of the Johnny Griffin Quartet was great, I do remember. I did like it so much, I even went with a friend of mine to one of his concerts a few years later in Vredenburg in Utrecht. I’ve been cheating a bit, the photo below was taken at that concert and not at one of the North Sea Jazz Festivals that I visited.

Fast forward 36 years and where am I now? Do I still like jazz or am I content listening to Rock, Punk or Grunge? I have to admit, I do recognize a lot of John Coltrane in the improvisations of Neil young, I would bet that old Neil is listening to a lot of the same records I listen to too. . It has been a long time since I got used to my jazz-hating mates not understanding jazz at all, it is their loss. (Although it annoys me when they insist on me changing the record while they insist on boring me with Genesis.)

Photo to the right: Johnny Griffin at the North Sea Jazz Festival – Saturday 17 July 1982. Photo below: Johnny Griffin probably 1983 at Vredenbug in Utrecht.

I am still extending my collection of jazz albums and CDs and my Android phone is packed with jazz. My favourite period is the early 1960 and 1970s but I don’t sneeze at any of the recent jazz at all. But what wouldn’t have given to catch Monk, Miles, Trane or Mingus in concert!? I’m glad that the North Sea Jazz Festivals still continue albeit it now in Rot-

terdam, but as I have moved away from the Netherlands, I have not had the time and opportunity to catch any of them. Would I enjoy it as much as before? Would I still have the same opportunity and freedom to photograph the concerts as we did in the 80s? These two questions are really the same thing, the enjoyment of the concert was amplified exponentially by photographing it at the same time. I doubt frankly that this is still possible with anything but a phone, and this is what stops me from going back: As so many things that were created for the love of the thing are now just about the money, the heart is probably gone, I fear it will be a disappointment. The Germans probably have a word for this feeling... But those were some great concerts I photographed, and I had a fabulous time!

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