DUO BAARS HENNEMAN & DAVE BURRELL


TRANDANS

Sometimes it is better not to react, or, to be more precise, to react with silence. Listening to this delightful record by Ab Baars, Dave Burrell and Ig Henneman will help you to remember why. There are many great examples of silence as a suitable answer to be found on Trandans. My favourite episode in this adventure is the part where pianist Dave Burrell lays out for a long time, letting the viola of Ig Henneman and the shakuhachi and tenorsax of Ab Baars do the powerful and sometimes even frantic talking. I remember seeing Burrell sitting at the Bimhuis piano, hands in his lap, just listening, but listening with an almost manifest eagerness. It is only when Henneman and Baars end the wonderful pieces titled Regn segel (Rain sail) and Rassel runt brunnen (Jangle around the well) that Burrell starts to play, at another pulse and adding ideas from a different source like some stride piano, but still as an obvious reaction to what is happening. Henneman and Baars now prove their excellence by keeping their calm and staying collected till their turn comes. No, it is wrong to say it comes, they catch it, or rather, find it, create it, bringing it to life by being loving, attentive and determined. Their quiet re-entrance into the music is perfectly timed, we can hear that, but the brilliance of this trio is proved most powerful when we start to think about all the other moments they could have uttered a note and most certainly would have changed the direction of the music, maybe would even have ruined it. There are no ruins on Trandans, from beginning to end this is marvellous, improvised music. A music so marvellous that we tend to forget that it did not exist before Ab Baars, Dave Burrell and Ig Henneman stepped on the stage of the Bimhuis that one night in September. And which after that intriguing concert did exist only as a memory. Until now.
--Mischa Andriessen