The last day of North Sea Jazz 2024 promises to be an interesting day, but one about which a lot has been said in advance. A frequently heard comment is that there are few major headliners on the program.
After Pinkpop had previously been badly beaten, although someone like Ed Sheeran effortlessly sold out the festival site on his own, Down The Rabbit Hole also appeared to fall short when it comes to booking big names. Lowlands is also not doing too well in that regard, although the festival has sold out all tickets in advance without any names being announced.
The same problem also applies to North Sea Jazz. This could possibly be due to the aftermath of the post-pandemic period. Namely, everyone was immediately ready to go wild again once it was allowed and that rush now seems to have somewhat run its course. On the other hand, the number of female artists at the festival seems to have increased again and at the same time we see a male Grammy Award winner on the smallest stage.
North Sea Jazz has always been an event in which boundaries are pushed and exceeded and in which diversity seems to be decisive, musically speaking that is. Even today it can be seen on the grounds around Ahoy that the public is looking forward to it. The long lines in front of the closed doors well before the start time are now a familiar sight. BluesJazzScenes.com was happy to join the queue early so that we could be present on the festival grounds from 3pm.
The lecture by an expert in the field of vinyl on which the most beautiful sounds from all parts of the world have been recorded has already started on the terrace of the Mississippi. Preferably these are 78 rpm records and, if necessary, battered and scratched. It is Ziya Ertekin, an old acquaintance we met at previous editions and who is better known as BLUE FLAMINGO.
We see an ethnomusicologist at work here and everyone knows that he knows music in its cultural context. On an attractive terrace in the sun you can listen to beautiful African and other exotic sounds that could come straight from Zanzibar or somewhere off the coast of Tanzania.
This appears to be true, according to the stylishly dressed DJ who happily poses for a photographer while standing in front of his DJ booth with a record in his hand. Very nice to finally hear a DJ who tries to convey his enthusiasm for music to his listeners.
Such as the history of the ‘Woman is da man’s best friend’ or the unlikely but true story that, whether floating somewhere in space or not, the Martians had to get acquainted with humans and that NASA therefore created a space probe with a gold plate and wanted to send a pickup to Mars in it.
“The Beatles was not possible under copyright law, so they sent music by Blind Willie Johnson,” after which an old gospel from the fifties is played. The oldest music of the entire weekend will most likely be heard here and comes from Ronnie Johnson with a recording from 1928. “You will soon hear a heavy accent on the 2nd beat, the record is broken, but you sometimes have that with 78- touring records.”
Apparently it can get even crazier because he suddenly takes a record out of the suitcase that was released in 1895. There is also a nice story about his visit to New Orleans, where he was allowed to select 78 rpm records from the havoc caused by Katrina in a record store behind a closed door, among the rats and cockroaches, and only had to pay an almost symbolic amount for them.
Passers-by look in surprise at the terrace where ‘Fiesta Cubana’ is played, which was recorded in 1957 and which seems to form the basis of reggae from Jamaica as we came to know it from the 1960s. The special thing about this is that it was not recorded in Jamaica but in Kinshasa, which is in Congo.
The sun is shining when he tells all about Jamaican sound systems from the fifties and it is difficult to sit still when a sound system classic ends up on the turntable. After the background of the ‘Mardigrass Mambo’ that the Hawketts recorded from New Orleans, the journey continues via Clarksdale, Mississippi with Muddy Waters on acoustic slide guitar, from the Aristocrat Records Label and we are now wonderfully warmed up for a visit to Congo Square.
On the smallest stage of the festival is a Grammy Award winner who has delivered the most important and best blues album of 2022 in America.
It will most likely not have happened before and remains a strange sensation, but here we hear the “North Hill Country Blues” by singer/guitarist CEDRIC BURNSIDE and we hear material from “I Be Trying”, the title of the album mentioned above. It is not the first time that a Burnside has played at the festival.
His grandfather was at North Sea Jazz a long time ago, but Robert Lee Burnside, better known as R.L. would only gain recognition after his death when Jon Spencer and the Blues Explosion made off with his music and suddenly betrayed The Black Keys where they once got their inspiration from. ‘The World Can Be So Cold’, sings Burnside junior on the crowded square where the sun is starting to shine brighter, but the heart-warming applause does the musician good.
His lyrics are gloomy, dark even, but there is always hope because faith keeps him going after all. During his debut at North Sea Jazz, he is accompanied by his bassist and drummer, who form a solid rhythm tandem in which the repetitive chords seem to provide a hallucinatory effect that you do not even experience in the world of dance, trance and house music. encounters.
Like his grandfather, Burnside has become an ambassador of music that keeps the tradition of the American Delta alive and thus inspires young guitarists. Cedric Burnside’s debut leaves you wanting more and that is why it will be followed up the same day, a few hours later, on the same stage. It will have been a long time since he was allowed to play on such a small stage, but the audience clearly enjoys his tribute to the Mississippi Blues on Congo Square, in which he also indirectly honors the music of his grandfather.
It is unfortunately inevitable that the ‘hall of fame of the fallen who once shone here’ continues to grow, but it sometimes produces a wonderful tribute as will be seen today in the Nile. From today’s block schedule it can be concluded that an explosion of funk is about to erupt throughout the entire site early in the day.
It is therefore possible to choose CANDY DULFER With Special Guest JONATHAN BUTLER in the Nile and anyone who has ever been to the festival before will never have missed a Dulfer.
Two years ago there were even two on one stage, not for the first time, when the daughter and father jointly blew the tiles off the roof, no poles from the ground of the tent, bopping hard, because it was on the outdoor stage. Last year at the same time Philip Lassiter was here with his Philthy Phunk Army and they were allowed to appear briefly as a special guest. Today it almost sounds familiar to see the great band around the sympathetic and always radiant saxophonist playing the well-known ‘Pick Up The Pieces’.
It is also a relief to hear a woman with a different sound here this weekend. Dulfer has come to new insights and one of those insights is that “We have to party a lot more,” says Dulfer, after which the band follows with ‘Perspective’ from the wonderful album ‘We Never Stop’ that they released two years ago. Yet there are also subdued moments in the show and it does many visitors a great favor with an instrumental tribute that focuses on the music of David Sanborn, a good friend and fixture during this festival who died two months ago. Dulfer has meant a lot to music in the Netherlands for a long time, but she also has interesting connections in the rest of the world who are happy to share the stage with her.
For today’s show, Candy has decided to bring Jonathan Butler back into the spotlight. The South African musician ended up in America via Europe and may therefore have disappeared somewhat from the radar after being heard on the radio here sometime in the late 1980s.
Some people now think they recognize the cheerful light-funk of ‘Lies’, which fortunately is performed somewhat extra spicy by Dulfer’s band. You could compare Butler with a lighter variant of George Benson, but slightly more towards R&B where Benson delves into the jazz corner more often. His album, released last year and produced by Marcus Miller, features contributions from Stevie Wonder and Keb’ Mo’, so he has not been completely forgotten.
Dulfer’s musical friendship that arose during the Smooth Jazz Cruise is now bringing Butler back into the spotlight and that is nice, but why look so far from home when you have Ivan Peroti here, the regular singer in the band for years, who Although he is positioned on the side, he always manages to attract everyone’s attention with his wonderfully soulful voice. The audience loves it all and rewards Dulfer and her fantastic band with prolonged applause.
Anyone who cannot get to the Maas on time has a problem because KARSU is there to excite the audience with an inventive mix of musical Turkish ingredients, various jazz styles and pop influences and anyone who sees this beautiful appearance shining on the stage is in doubt. does not indicate that she herself enjoys it the most.
The appreciation from the audience is great. It is the result of years of hard work and belief in one’s own abilities with a very idiosyncratic working method that seems to have been adopted by the general public for some time now. She thanks her band members several times with a sweet nod or admiring look. How international can you be when this Amsterdam native of Turkish descent, ‘Hijo de la Luna’, performs a Spanish-language hit from 1990 that is recognized and sung along by everyone. It seems to be a harbinger of the football final that will take place a little later and is already clearly on the minds of many English attendees.
Back in the Nile, CORY HENRY is jumping in a very heated room. He managed to find his way to Rotterdam blindly because the versatile multi-instrumentalist is a guest at the festival almost every year. It is not the New Power Generation that we see at work here, but the wonderfully exciting Funk Apostles.
The new tracks that Henry and his band play here show where the inspiration comes from. The brand new ‘Dancin’ Ain’t No Sin’ is a wonderfully energetic floor killer that was sorely missed the night before during Jessie Ware’s performance. . Henry wants to practice with the audience. A ‘rehearsal’ with question and response after which things can apparently get even wilder.
Like Prince’s best funk stomper from the eighties, he bounces and jumps through the Nile and even the largest stage of the festival seems too small. “Holy Ghost’ is it Sunday?” he wonders. We didn’t see the end of the performance, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he was still there on Monday morning.
The performance can be called an absolute highlight, but in the meantime the next band is eager to deliver a calling card after an earlier cancellation. THE BLACK PUMAS is the band everyone is looking forward to seeing today. The Texans, led by frontman Eric Burton, have already completed quite a few hours. The careers of the young musicians have progressed quickly, who can now effortlessly sell out even larger halls on their own than the largest of the festivals where it has to happen today.
There really is no room for anyone when the performance starts. It seems like a game won in advance, but the eagerness to leave an indelible impression today is absolutely present. So strong that Burton dares, perhaps a bit overconfidently, to take a leap into the audience and then casually hug everyone and pose for a selfie while the band continues to play. What is striking is the strong set, which is only composed of two albums and of which ‘Chronicles of a Diamond’, released last year, is the most recent achievement.
The music that was initially mainly described as neo-soul now looks much more like rock with a pop edge with this sound adjustment. In any case, it is a sound that will please an ever-growing audience and can be called attractive from a commercial point of view. Let’s hope that they remain quirky and, above all, authentic for a long time and that they would like to come back to this festival again.
STING closed the NN North Sea Jazz Festival on Sunday, July 14, 2024 in the Nile. During his performance, the music icon brought a selection of his biggest hits to the Netherlands as part of his STING 3.0 Tour. We hope to be there again next year to report on the North Sea Jazz Festival 2025 for three days with photos and atmospheric impressions.STING closed the NN North Sea Jazz Festival on Sunday, July 14, 2024 in the Nile. During his performance, the music icon brought a selection of his biggest hits to the Netherlands as part of his STING 3.0 Tour. We hope to be there again next year to report on the North Sea Jazz Festival 2025 for three days with photos and atmospheric impressions.
