January 19, 2019 In ChocoJazz

ChocoJazz on National Japanese Television NHK

We were ready for Christmas when we got a message from Shiho; ‘NHK, Japanese Television wants do to a mini-documentary about ChocoJazz, do you have any events coming up?’ Obviously, her deadline was approaching and the holidays were approaching, but we said: “yes, we love to be featured!”

And there we went,.. filmed while going to the galleries, enjoying some art, at the Market in the Bronx, picking up some microgreens from Koppert Cress, in our home on the big blue couch and yes, during the ChocoJazz show at Der Pioneer in Brooklyn. The feature became a 6-minute Japanese introduction of our project, and here you can see it!

We want to thank all our friends as well as Bjorn and Greg from Der Pioneer, Original Beans, Le Nouveau Chef, Koppert Cress, and Catalonia Plates and of course Shiho from NHK – catch.

https://youtu.be/xoIR6cJ-GMY

November 3, 2018 In NY Artist Q&A

NY Artist Q&A: Nadje Noordhuis

For this series of bloggy interviews, I’ve shared questions with young artists and musicians living in New York. This time: trumpeter and composer Nadje Noordhuis. I’ve met her through my friend and former neighbor Leala Cyr and I’m excited that she wanted to be part of this little Q&A – couch session. In addition to the questions, we met up and played a few songs in my place in Brooklyn together. She brought her pedals and we both jammed for a bit, and here is our collaboration.

Q&A with Nadje Noordhuis

* WHERE ARE YOU FROM, WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT HOME?

I’m from Sydney, Australia. I miss my family and my friends most of all, followed by the beaches, the wine, and seafood.

* FAVORITE PLACE IN THE CITY

My favorite venues are the 55 Bar and the Jazz Standard. My nostalgic favorites are The Hungarian Pastry Shop, and Tom’s Restaurant (the Brooklyn one). I need my local coffee shops in Ditmas Park, and MoMA.

* FAVORITE NEW MUSIC

My musical taste is pretty eclectic – I’ve been getting into Penny & Sparrow, Townes Van Zandt, Gabriel Kahane, and Ghost.

* FAVORITE OLD MUSIC

I am a big Nick Cave fan. He was the first concert that I ever went to at age fourteen, and I just saw him at Barclays last month. He’s my absolute favorite.

* WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE NON-MUSIC THING TO DO

I love hanging with friends for a home cooked meal – that always hits the soul. I love to Skype with my niece and nephew. And I knit, and read, and go for walks in Prospect Park. Any chance I get to hang upstate, especially up near Woodstock, I take!

* WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON MUSICALLY

I’m learning more about how to use my crazy pedalboard – every time I play, I discover something new. And discover what I thought I could do but can’t actually replicate. It’s a beast. But I love it. I’m also playing a lot of piano, and writing more tunes. 

* WHATS YOUR GREATEST FANGIRL MOMENT?

I met Kenny Wheeler once but was too shy to play in front of him at a workshop. Years ago I met my heroes Fred Hersch and Matt Wilson, and I’m super thrilled to be touring with both of them next year. I would love to meet Manfred Eicher from ECM. And I think I would pass out if I met Nick Cave.

* CRAZIEST GIG EXPERIENCE

About sixteen years ago in Melbourne, at 8am in a public park, I was crouched in the garden with my trumpet in a gym bag, waiting for the cue of a wave of a straw hat, where I had to leap out and play Amazing Grace for a group of people on a tour of the park. Someone saw me waiting to play and asked if I was okay.

* WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?

I honestly don’t know. Things change so quickly, and I am always up for an adventure. So I may be still playing and teaching and writing, or maybe doing something completely different. No clue!

* YOUR WEBSITE

www.nadjenoordhuis.com & www.littlemysteryrecords.com

* LINK TO A VIDEO OF YOU

July 3, 2018 In NY Artist Q&A

NY Artist Q&A: Song Yi Jeon

For this series of bloggy interviews I’ve shared questions with young artists and musicians living in New York. This time: vocalist and composer Song Yi Jeon. I’ve met her first while studying at Berklee College of music when we were studying with people like Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Joe Lovano and George Garzone. And I really love where she is taking her music and I encourage you all to check her new album out that was released last month!

* WHERE ARE YOU FROM, WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT HOME?

I’m from Republic of Korea, which is known as South Korea. I miss my parents, cheap street food. – Currently I’m visiting Korea, so all fulfilled! 

* FAVORITE PLACE IN THE CITY

I have a couple favorite places in New York. Union square, which is the most convenient location to meet people or call people to come. The other one is a coffee shop at my neighborhood, called “Coffee Mob”. Best coffee ever! The last place is the area near Washington Square park. All the jazz clubs, and my (probably not only mine but most of my musician friends) nightlife is there.

* FAVORITE NEW MUSIC

…is more like a new discovery; Charles Mingus and Fred Hersch (duo album with Anat Cohen)

* FAVORITE OLD MUSIC

  • Edward Simon’s Impossible question. It’s an album with David Binney.
  • Guillermo Klein’s “El Minotauro”
  • Byungki Hwang’s “Spring Snow (Chun Seol)” – Korean traditional instrument music

* WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE NON-MUSIC THING TO DO

Eating chocolate, drinking coffee (But I have limit, 1 cup a day!) and I love watching complete tv series at once!

* WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON MUSICALLY

I have a concert about Thelonious Monk. I’m trying to arrange his songs which is not easy at all but I’m learning a lot through this process!

* CRAZIEST GIG EXPERIENCE

I had two episodes at one gig. I had an opportunity to play in Qatar with some Arabic musicians as well as Western musicians. We were about to perform and last minute they told me that I cannot wear a dress that shows my knees. So we had to find a long dress, black tie style, like 30 minutes before the show. Few days after when we were leaving at the airport, passport controller was not letting me to leave, looking at me weirdly. The truth was that my entrance visa was saying that I was from North Korea. Oops…

* WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?

I honestly don’t know. I was living in NY until last month, and tried to live day by day and perform and surviving in NY as a musician for the next 10 years was my dream. Now I left NY, much earlier than I thought as a matter of fact, but I’m moving to Europe. I cannot picture myself yet how I would be in next 10 years. Probably I would do the same as I did in NY; keep trying to live day by day, writing music, performing and surviving. And hopefully my music gets growing.

Recently I released a new album. Here is the bandcamp link that people can listen to entire album!

* LINK TO A VIDEO OF YOU

It’s a video of a Korean traditional folk song that I arranged. It’s also a last track of my new album “Movement of Lives”

https://youtu.be/MHz0DEAPO9Y

* LINK TO YOUR WEBSITE

https://www.songyimusic.com/contact

 

robin koerts collab
November 2, 2017 In Uncategorized

Robin Koerts Electronic collaboration – Video!

Let me tell you a little bit about my collaboration with Robin Koerts. You might have seen some clips or pics on the internet of us performing at various shows, but it’s pretty hard to get what we actually do on stage. And It’s actually one of the most inspiring things I do musically!

Koerts, Robin Koerts

My collaboration with Robin Koerts is a very diverse one. Every time I try to explain what we’re doing I come to the same conclusion: you have to see and hear it, to get it. First of, you need to know that Robin Koerts is one of best bass players in the Netherlands, and definitely one of the best bass players I know. Being a huge Jaco Pastorius fan, he has this groove over him, which trickles down in everything he does. Second of all, he watches a lot of movies, like a lot. The funny thing is, in these movies he hears or sees something that has a groove or a rhythm.

And then he tends to implements that in his music. Third, he makes short musical clips for one of the best watched talkshows of The Netherlands (De Wereld Draait Door) and they’re called ‘Soundbites’. In these soundbites clips he takes a small snippet of video material of something that he recently saw in the news. It could be a politician saying a sentence or a word, a host that is sighing, piece of the news where something went wrong. He loops these snippets and lays them over each other, making a groovy, looping song out of it.

So back to the part where Robin watches a lot of movies. In these movies he hears something that he could turn into a groove. It could be a guy from ‘King of the Hill’ that says:”I don’t know if we can save this engine” or he puts all the moments when people slap each other in the face in a loop so that I becomes a drumkick. Think the same with 150 snippets of car-doors closing. The guy is a walking drum computer.

In the shows that Robin and I do, we mix his and my creations up. I sing parts of my songs and he puts parts of his songs in his loop-pedal so he can start a video of his own made face-slapping, digeredoo playing, trumpet buzzing or car-door slamming groove, whenever he wants, whatever he wants. Sometimes the base for our songs is one of his originals, and sometimes it’s one of mine. But we always leave space for improvisation. A song that starts of as one of my originals, mixed up with his “I don’t know if we can save this engine” can turn into a snippet with the Beastie Boys, me playing my Korg R3 synthesizer and looping my voice at the same time, while Robin is grooving on his electric bass guitar..

Below is a video compilation of one my shows in the Netherlands with Robin Koerts which includes a lot of cool parts that show. But it’s best to just come to one of our shows and enjoy this cool collaboration between us! See you there!

November 2, 2017 In ChocoJazz

ChocoJazz Meets De Stijl – Live at the Netherlands Club of New York

Coming back from Zutphen to New York felt a bit like coming home. But no time to sit down and relax, because we had another ChocoJazz show coming up! Since this year is the year of De Stijl – the art group De Stijl was founded in Leiden 100 years ago – The Netherlands Club of New York wanted to celebrate this by throwing a party. And since the mayor of The Hague, Pauline Krikke, was in town they wanted to commemorate the influence of Mondrian and De Stijl by giving the owner of the building where Mondrian found the ‘Boogie Woogie’ a memorial plaque. Since we are talking about Jazz and art anyways, it would only be appropriate to perform at the The Netherlands Club with our ‘ChocoJazz Meets De Stijl’ show, which we performed earlier this year in Leiden.

Sold out!

And… the tickets were sold out within an hour! A hundred people came that night to The Warwick Hotel to celebrate De Stijl, meet the mayor and of course see what ChocoJazz is all about. I asked my longtime Berklee friend and bass player Max Ridley to come join us at this show, and having played lots of free jazz with him at the Lilypad in Boston before, I knew he would be a natural. We performed four paintings with the colors Yellow, Blue, Red and Black & White and played to these colors. Max’ bass filled up the room as my sounds inspired Teddy to create his edible paintings, which everybody -kinda hesitant at first- got to eat afterwards. It was a great night we got to inspire a lot of people and of course met the mayor!

Thank you Mayor of The Hague Pauline Krikke for attending our show and thank you Netherland Club of New York for hosting. I would also like to thank Koppert Cress USA at Long Island for arranging the beautiful edible flowers and cresses, Le Nouveau Chef for Teddy’s Chefs clothing and Original Beans for providing the most stunning chocolate were everybody got crazy over! And of course my dear friend Max Ridley for coming over to New York, blowing everybody including me away, having a few laughs and then grabbing a 4AM bus back to Boston..Musicians life..

Oh, and you can read Pauline Krikke’s Blog here.

Photo credit by Colin Faber.

December 1, 2016 In Uncategorized

Photoshoot RAW

So we wanted to look like a very unconventional chef and singer…. so we turned ourselves into Rockstars! With the fantastic make-up skills by Anja Mendillo and the view and photographic eye of Trudy Giordano we made this glam pictures!

See the whole shoot on :  http://www.rawthentic.photo/chocojazzii

 

 

 

 

 

 

STREETNOTES
October 1, 2016 In Uncategorized

Photoshoot w/ Karen van Gilst

September 2016 this amazing young Dutch photographer came to visit New York for her new project; Streetnotes. A travel website where she interviews and films musicians in their favorite spot in New York. She contacted me and we met up in Prospect park, close to my place in Brooklyn. The pictures turned out great, and the little music video was improvised live while using the sounds that were already in the air. Listen to it here!

https://youtu.be/brKZQhYAEWw

Streetnotes is a project by Photographer Karen van Gilst. Check Streetnotes.nl to discover the best (not necessarily travel agency approved) parts of New York, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Walking towards the Botanical Garden of Brooklyn, the original spot we decided on recording her Streetnote, Vivienne’s husband started telling me about an old tunnel in Prospect Park not far from there. In combination with Vivienne’s voice that was a golden idea. She is an amazing singer and artist in the broadest cense of the word. What I mean? Check out her Streetnote!

“I sing about water and soap, about rooftop gardens and musicians that I met on a certain moment and time … As pure as it gets, a background in jazz, now exploring the very edges of the style. Intense as never before, it swings, crushes and touches. To find and experience total freedom.” – Vivienne Aerts

March 6, 2015 In ChocoJazz, Uncategorized

Jazz & Chocolate in NYC

2015-01-24 23.57.47Ok, a little update for now. After graduating in Berklee I had a long break – almost 3 months – in the Netherlands. It was so great to be back and see my family and friends and have some quiet time in my new house.

I’ve been in Boston for the last few days jumping from airbed to couch to cat-sitting-house… Had superfun hangs with my Boston friends, and also working with Kenny Werner has been super intense but also amazingly inspiring.

And yesterday, finally, my Dutch boyfriend Ted – alias ChocoTed – got his contract an he will start May 1st as a pastry intern at this amazing restaurant in NYC… So next week I’ll go to NYC and start my adventures of working on a new project and wait till Ted gets here by the end of April.

I must say life after Berklee is a rollercoaster, but I’m determined to follow my heart and pursue my dreams.