Caszh Blast 3 - North Sea Jazz

Hi everyone!

I’m writing to you from a train heading out of the Netherlands into Germany. It feels a bit odd to be travelling in the wake of my instruments being stolen and having many people lend me a hand, but this trip has been in the books for a long time. Nothing ever happens for a reason, they just happen and then you write about it. A train attendant just pretended to get upset at a young traveller for having an open drink, but eventually revealed he just thinks the Heineken was a bad choice of beer and was roasting him in front of his friends. He had the kid quaking.

As I chug along to Berlin and listen to young Dutch travellers drink and play cards across the aisle, I am reminded of my teenaged self. In 2017 I was encouraged by my dad to buy a Eurail ticket and disappear across the Atlantic Ocean to explore the weird and wondrous world of backpacking. It changed me completely. At an age when many of my peers had scarcely considered getting a driver’s license and had certainly never stayed anywhere by themslves before, I was booking last-minute trains through Serbia and feverishly writing down driving directions to my next hostel in Montenegrin as my phone ran out of battery and cell service (again). It is an odd sensation to grow up so quickly. I have always had growing pains.

This trip has not been so unhinged as that first one, but has been nonetheless thrilling. The first chapter has already come to a close, the North Sea Jazz Festival. This was definitely the highest-caliber music festival I have ever been to. Here are some highlights:

The whole festival is inside this massive entertainment complex called Ahoy. There were 18 concurrent stages with occupancy limits from ~200 to ~4000 people at each stage. They wrote “JAZZ” all over the side of the building. They JAZZed all over the place.

Julien Lage is the world’s greatest jazz guitarist, I’m certain of it. I’ve never seen someone play a Telecaster like that. The dynamics were unreal. The listening and responsiveness between the band members was inspiring. I was in shock.

Patrick Bartley shreds. I met him after his set and told him about my sax being taken, and how I’ve been playing alto since. His main comment was that alto is a way harder instrument than tenor. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Surely they are both just tools for expression.

Béla Fleck is a force of nature and should be worshipped as such. This band consisted of banjo, folk harp, and a big fuck-ass drum kit.

Got a spot at the barrier and the setlist for Jacob Collier with the Metropole Orkest. More about him later.

I was clearly not focused on taking good photos. This was Tigran Hamasayan’s band. Prog metal with synthesizers and insane jazz harmony that occasionally dipped into Armenian folk music. What the hell.

Kamasi Washington. Up at the barrier again.

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I got to see so many amazing artists. There were also a lot of great acts I didn’t get to see. Because of all the concurrent stages and massive attendance it just wasn’t possible to get to everyone. Notable artists whose sets I missed include Norah Jones, Diana Ross, Branford Marsalis, Mary J. Blige, Cory Wong, and Herbie Hancock. Damn.

Jacob Collier was the festival’s Artist-In-Residence. He had 4 performances over the weekend, although one of them was more of a talk. I, uh, really like Jacob Collier. I’ll be the first to admit that his maximalist style is not for everyone, and that it can sometimes get in the way of delivering any kind of concise message. But more than his technical executions of harmony and rhythm, I love his attitude towards music and creation. He is endlessly playful and encourages everyone around him to join him in it, conversationally as well as performatively with his famous use of the “audience choir” where he improvises triadic harmony with the attendees of his shows.

I caught three of his four performances. The first one was the typical Jacob Collier world tour set, with a lot of his more pop-ish work. This one was great, but isn’t my favourite execution of his creative tendencies. I loved the improvised piano ballad, though.

The second one was the talk. I have watched a lot of videos of interviews and talks and session breakdowns where he talks about his process and ethos around music and general artistry. I heard him bring up a lot of the same points around it as I had heard before, but hearing it in person felt a lot different. When he talked about harmony and how important context is, and the inherent inefficacy of strict musical education systems, I felt so deeply that he and I had arrived at the same conclusions about how we ought to approach creativity as a lifelong effort of empathy and compassion. He also spoke about how technique and should be learned and appreciated, but only in the pursuit of more effective self-expression. He answered a lot of questions, but never landed on me.

The last of his sets I saw was his performance with the Metropole Orkest. I got to see him perform his much more delicate and emotional orchestral works from right up at the barrier. At the end, for an encore, he made an impromptu arrangement of C. Carson Parks’ “Somethin’ Stupid” by singing looping parts to various sections of the orchestra and having them follow along. I’ve seen videos of this before, so it wasn’t completely improvised, but it was definitely unplanned. He also did an arrangement of Wild Mountain Thyme, a beautiful English folk song that I sang a version of in my high school’s chamber choir. That one was special to me.

I spent the weekend trying really hard to exchange any words at all with Mr. Collier. Naïvely, maybe, I really truly believe we would get along. I’ve thought this for a long time. I really wanted to talk to him. I also really wanted him to sign my pants. It never happened.

These confusing emotions and parasocial affection for a man who might never know my name race through my mind much the same as this train car whips through the German countryside. It is unclear, yet, where the back half of this trip will take me. I mean, I’ll be in Berlin. But emotionally, I’m not sure how I’m gonna feel or how I’m gonna change. I guess that's what I’m getting at. Yeah.

Good trip so far! Feel free to message me back with suggestions of things to check out in Berlin, if you have any. Or just to say hi!