Early Morning Blues - The Rein de Graaff Trio

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.  

Since its inception 11 years ago, writing this blog has brought me into contact with many new Jazz friends and musicians, among whom are three exceptional players from Holland: pianist, Rein de Graaff, bassist Marius Beets and drummer Eric Ineke.

Most of our contact has been via the internet and through phone conversations, but thanks to their attendance at a Los Angeles-based Jazz event a few years ago, I was also fortunate enough to be able to share a breakfast with Rein and Eric at our home.

Rein, Marius and Eric are a hard driving straight-ahead rhythm section that forms a perfect complement to Jazz played in this style, one which is near and dear to my heart.

They usually record as a unit in support of horn players, so when I received the news that the trio was planning a rare excursion into a CD using just a piano, bass and drums format, I asked if I could prepare the insert notes. The response to this request is what follows.

“Imagine, if you will, being a young Jazz musician living in Holland, where your primary exposure to the post World War II Bebop Jazz scene in America is via recordings or the occasional concert or local club appearance by one of the Jazz musicians you’ve long admired. You dream that one day you’ll get to work with these American Jazz musicians who have become your idols.

Over the decade or so since you first fell in love with the music as a teenager, your skills as a player have evolved to the point where you can more than hold your own with other Jazz musicians with whom you perform in The Netherlands.

There’s enough work in the Jazz clubs in Den Haag or in Amsterdam or in Rotterdam, so you get to play Jazz on a regular basis, although more than likely, as is the case with many Jazz musicians who haven’t achieved international acclaim, you probably hold down a day gig to pay the rent and take care of your family.

Maybe if you are a pianist or a bassist or a drummer, you come together often enough to form a tight knit rhythm section and to work fairly regularly as a piano-bass-drums trio.

As you come into your own as a rhythm unit, you begin to notice that you are getting regular calls by promoters or nightclub owners to work with American Jazz musicians who are touring Europe.

With the passage of time, you also notice another trend as a result of a dynamic that the Jazz musician and writer Mike Zwerin described as a time when “Jazz went to Europe to live.”

Pushed out by the burgeoning Rock ‘n Roll and Folk Music phenomenons that swept the youth in the USA of the 1960s,  American Jazz musicians were becoming expatriates and settling in Europe where the music still had a fan base.

So now instead of the occasional gig with the likes of tenor saxophonist Don Byas who settled in France or trumpeter Benny Bailey who settled in Sweden or tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon who settled in Denmark, you become part of their touring band whenever they make it to Holland.

One day you're listening to them on records and the next you’re making a gig with them at Nick’s Cafe in Laren, The Netherlands!

Over the last century or so, this dream-like existence became a reality for pianist Rein de Graaff and his close associate, drummer Eric Ineke, as they along with a small number of excellent Dutch bassists, the most recent of whom is Marius Beets, have been the rhythm section of choice for a whole host of visiting American Jazz musicians.

All one need do is look at Rein’s discography in Wikipedia or Discogs dating back to 1969 to find their names which would include: J.R. Monterose, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Teddy Edwards, Al Cohn, Dave Pike, Charles McPherson, David “Fathead” Newman, Marcel Ivery, Major Holley, Conte Candoli, Bob Cooper, Bud Shank, Nick Brignola, Ronnie Cuber, Herb Geller, Pete Christlieb, Sam Most, and Scott Hamilton, not to mention a slew of notable Dutch Jazz musicians.

Many of these recordings by these prominent American Jazzmen accompanied by Rein’s trio followed tours of Holland and the neighboring Low Countries.

Incidentally, Wim Wigt, the producer of this disc for his Timeless label was the manager of these gigs in the Netherlands and he was able to find bookings in Hilversum, Leiden, Veendam, Venlo, Zwolle, Den Haag, Heemskerk, Amsterdam, De Woude, Rotterdam, and Enschede. As Dexter Gordon would tell his friends :” … there were jazz lovers in all these places in a country the size of the state of Maryland.”

We spoke to Rein de Graaff by phone recently to get his take on how Early Morning Blues came about and to discuss the music he selected for the recording.

In terms of how the disc evolved, Rein explained that: “We are so busy working behind horn players that we only get a chance to perform as a trio a couple of times a year.”

So I decided to get together with Eric and Marius and make this trio album. When it was finished I suddenly realized that the last time I made a trio recording was in 1981 - almost forty years ago!”

Rein was referring to Chasin the Bird issued in 1981 as a Timeless LP [SJP 159] on which he is joined by bassist Koos Serierse and drummer Eric Ineke.

On Early Morning Blues, Eric continues as Rein’s drummer of choice, a role he has assumed for over four decades, with Marius Beets stepping in to handle the bass lines as well as to take responsibility for recording, editing and mastering the the album.

When I asked Rein if there was a theme around which the 13 tracks of the recording was based he replied: “No, no theme, but my music comes from Bebop and its legends such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, so there is usually a close relationship with that style of Jazz for many of the tunes that I selected.

For example, Don’t Blame Me and Lover Man are two ballads that are closely associated with Charlie Parker while These Are The Things and Moonology are based on a standard set of chord progressions that all beboppers liked to play on.”

“I chose to play these tunes as duos with Marius because I was visiting his studio to checkout the piano the day before we recorded there as a trio. Marius had the tape running and we sounded so good on the two tunes that we decided to include them on the finished recording.

You know, the piano is different in every studio, so that’s how the solo piano version of Little Girl Blue came about; with me testing the instrument.”

When I asked him about Avalon, a Swing Era tune not often heard in modern Jazz setting,  Rein explained that “ I have never played it before. A few days earlier, I was listening to a performance of the tune on pianist Elmo Hope’s LP that features tenor saxophonists Hank Mobley and John Coltrane with Donald Byrd on trumpet and I guess the tune was still in my mind when I called it at a tempo we used to play it at with Johnny Griffin. For something we never played before, we were all pleased with the way it turned out.”

In commenting about Early Morning Blues, Rein said: “The challenge of this piece is not just to play a slow blues, but to play it with a Blues feeling. Too often these days, you hear one without the other. I wanted the trio to play The Blues and I liked each version so much that we kept them both.”

Regarding other tunes on the recording, Rein shared that “Godchild, Fly Me to the Moon and Dear Old Stockholm are tunes that I like to play at home but which I haven’t played in public before. So when I brought them to the trio, I thought of how they could be arranged. For example, Dear Old Stockholm brought to mind the classic Miles Davis Quintet arrangement, which drummer Art Taylor taught me, while the ending for Fly Me to the Moon gave us an opportunity to add a “turnaround” to extend the swing of the piece, a device I learned from Sonny Stitt. Godchild by pianist George Wallington is straight out of Bud Powell, who all bebop pianists come from, so in a way this becomes the trio’s homage to him. The relaxed tempo also provides a nice vehicle to highlight Marius’ solo skills”

Although, it’s not a Blues, the trio’s rendering of If I Had You takes on the slow blues inflection that’s reflected in the title tune while the closer Wahoo, Charlie Parker’s version of the Jazz standard, Perdido, shows off the trio’s ability to dig into a hard driving and very funky groove.”

Rein’s colleagues on this recording, drummer Eric Ineke and bassist Marius Beets, have each had distinguished careers in their own right.

Universally acclaimed as one of the great Jazz drummers of the modern era, Eric Ineke currently leads the Jazzxpress, a dynamic quintet with six CDs to its credit. Eric is in demand throughout the Europe as a performer and a teacher and he holds a faculty position at the Royal Conservatoire in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Marius Beets performs with Eric in the Jazzxpress and with his brothers, Alexander [tenor sax] and Peter [piano] in a big band and small group that the brothers co-lead. In addition to his musical gifts as a bassist and composer, Marius maintains his own recording studio and is an accomplished recording engineer.

Not all of us get to live out our musical dreams, but Rein de Graaff followed his dreams into an existential reality that would be the envy of most Jazz musicians and he did so while maintaining the highest standards for performance in perpetuating the Bebop Jazz style.

After listening to the music on Early Morning Blues, I’m sure that you’ll agree with me that the trio is the perfect setting to demonstrate Rein’s skills as a master Jazz pianist in the Bebop tradition.

If as Louis Armstrong once said: “Jazz is who you are,” then this recording reveals the definitive Rein de Graaff.”

- Steven A. Cerra

Early Morning Blues [Timeless CDSJP 487]  is a brilliantly conceived and executed excursion into piano trio Jazz and you can add it to your collection.

Although the CD will not be available for purchase until March 15, 2019 at the Timeless Records website, I am posting this review now in conjunction with the latter part of Rein de Graaff’s Farewell Tour which you can checkout below. His regular trio of Marius Beets and Eric Ineke will be augmented with saxophonists Benjamin Herman, Maarten Hoogenhuis, Marco Kegel and Tineke Postma. Special guest: baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber.

Fri March 1: De Tor, Enschede

Sat March 2: Mahogany Hall, Edam

Sun March 3: Tivoli/Vredenburg, Utrecht 16:00 (feat. Ronnie Cuber)

Wed March 6: Brouwerij Martinus, Groningen

Fri March 8: De Harmonie, Leeuwarden

Sat March 10:Theater van Beresteyn, Veendam 15:00

Fri March 15:Bimhuis, Amsterdam (feat. Ronnie Cuber)