Saturday 31 January 2026, 20:00 CET – Jazz Guitar.
The most important Dutch award for jazz musicians is the annual Boy Edgar Prijs. Recent winners were Reinier Baas in 2025 and Anton Goudsmit in 2010. You’ll hear two pieces by each guitarist in the programme. In addition, you can hear music by Tuck Andress, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass and Joop Scholten.
The two pieces by Reinier Baas – twice winner of the Edison Jazz National and the Boy Edgar Prize – date from 2014 and 2024. There’s also a significant difference in the lineups in each piece – seven musicians versus two. But there are striking similarities.
In 2014, the album Smooth Jazz Apocalypse was released. A remarkable name for an album, with its inherent contradiction.
Orthodox (Baas) also turns out to be a puzzling title for the first piece. Indeed, Baas makes you think.
The repeated opening melody – guitar and piano – is simply diatonic. This simplicity also applies to the form: the repeated phrase of approximately 8 bars (slight irregularity) is a constant, interrupted only a few times by a 4-bar interlude. What also rarely disappears is the key of B. A slow buildup of soft, slowly shifting timbres behind the melody. All this creates a dreamy atmosphere. The guitar improvisation brings rhythmic and melodic dynamism.
(Ben van Gelder and Maarten Hogenhuis – alto saxophone, Joris Roelofs – bass clarinet, Harmen Fraanje – piano, Sean Fasciani – bass, Mark Schilders – drums.)
This Is Water (2024) is more recent, the third album by Baas and altoist Ben van Gelder. By that time they had been working together for over fifteen years.
In the title track, we hear a directly appealing, repetitive, soft melody. The guitar creates two layers – a rhythmic mid-range (flowing water?), with a clear bass line beneath. After a short middle section – in which both instruments turn a corner and the sax soars melodically – the opening reprise sounds, after which the sax briefly takes flight again.
Whereas the album title and the composition demanded attention in the previous track, here it’s the cover image that raises a question mark.
———————————
The ‘Hammond organ Trio’ has a long history. In addition to the organ, the lineup consists of either guitar and drums or sax and drums. The organist provides the bass line, either via the pedal or with his left hand on the keyboard. Sine emerging in the 1950s, this trio has undergone a long stylistic development from blues, gospel, R&B and bebop to jazz-rock fusion.
Guitarist Anton Goudsmit, organist Frank Montis, and drummer Cyriel Directie have been playing together for years. They have gained a wide audience with their music and spectacular stage act, in which hyper-energy shoots into the audience at steam heat. Some keywords: funk, swing, groove, soul jazz…
Two tracks from their first album Taste of Culture (2019). Mozzarella en Jan, in which a solo from guitarist Jan Akkerman can also be heard.
See the programme guide for the full playlist.
Jazz Guitar – Ton Ouwehand
(photo: Frank Montis, Anton Goudsmit, Cyriel Directie)
