Joris Roelofs: Rope Dance Joris Roelofs

• 1 Rope Dance: I. Beware the Buffoon! 04:40
• 2 Rope Dance: II. Sweet Superman 09:07
• 3 Rope Dance: III. Rope Dancer 05:34
• 4 Rope Dance: IV. Are Your Feet Light Enough? 01:26
• 5 Rope Dance: V. If You Gaze Long Into an Abyss 04:02
• 6 Rope Dance: VI. Off Balance 01:02
• 7 Rope Dance: VII. Eternal Recurrence 06:50
• 8 Rope Dance: VIII. The Three Metamorphoses 03:44
• 9 Rope Dance: IX. The Abyss Will Gaze Back Into You 02:57
• 10 Rope Dance: X. The Master Can't Dance 01:41
• 11 Rope Dance: XI. The Convalescent 07:59
• 12 Rope Dance: XII. The Laughing Child 02:33
• Total Runtime 51:35

Info for Joris Roelofs: Rope Dance

The award-winning Dutch composer and bass clarinet player Joris Roelofs is also currently working on a PhD dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche, improvisation and the notion of freedom. On the album Rope Dance he is able to combine all of this, in a suite of twelve pieces inspired by Nietzsche – ‘by far the most musical of philosophers’ according to Roelofs. It is especially the parable of the tightrope walker in the opening section of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None’ that has provided him with inspiration for his own ‘Light-Footed Music for All and None’. It is not surprising that Nietzsche’s thoughts about free spirits, liberated from conventional constraints and belief systems, resonate particularly well with musicians working with improvisation and across genres. Roelofs has therefore been able to gather a group of highly versatile colleagues from the Benelux jazz scene to perform his music: pianist Bram de Looze, bass player Clemens van der Feen and Martijn Vink on drums. The album also confirms the multi-faceted talents of bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, following previous recordings on BIS of classical, pre-Romantic and contemporary concertos, as well as hard rock covers with the group ORBI (the Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments).

Joris Roelofs (1984) graduated at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he now is a lecturer himself. In his career he played with many musicians from all over the world. In 2003, he was the first non-American to win the Stan Getz/Clifford Brown Fellowship Award. In 2011 he put together a trio with Ted Poor and Matt Penman, and recorded two albums with them. Roelofs was inspired by composers such as Debussy and Guillaume de Machaut. He hopes to unite techniques from classical and jazz music in his composition assignment, aiming to reserve space for coincidence and improvisation. Besides that, he will include powerful and dynamic melodies.

Joris Roelofs, clarinet, bass clarinet
Bram van Sambeek, bassoon
Harmen Fraanje, piano
Clemens van der Feen, bass
Martijn Vink, drums

Joris Roelofs
born February 21, 1984 in Aix-en-Provence (France), raised in Amsterdam (Netherlands), plays saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet. He started to play classical clarinet at the age of six, and then started the alto saxophone at the age of twelve. He was a member of the Vienna Art Orchestra from 2005 – 2010. Joris also plays lead alto in the Jazz Orchestra Of The Concertgebouw in the Netherlands.

He graduated in 2007 as a Master of Music at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In 2001 Joris won the Pim Jacobs Price.

In 2003 he received, as a first non-American, the Stan Getz/Clifford Brown Fellowship Award in the US, organized by the International Association Of Jazz Education (IAJE). The IAJE also honored him with a ‘First Level’ price. In 2004 Joris received the first price of the prestigious Deloitte Jazz Award in the Netherlands.

In 2008 he was selected for the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition.

Among others, Joris played with Brad Mehldau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christina Branco, Lionel Loueke, Eric Harland, Lewis Nash, Aaron Goldberg, Ralph Peterson, James Carter, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, WDR Big Band, Ari Hoenig, Matt Penman. In 2010 he was asked by Brad Mehldau to perform with him at the Carnegie Hall in New York and Sanders Theatre in Boston, along with Chris Potter, Joshua Redman, Chris Cheek, Greg Tardy, Sam Sadigursky, Timothy Andres and Becca Stevens. In a Dutch TV show, at age 16, Joris performed the famous clarinet introduction of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with the Orkest van het Oosten, and was featured as a soloist with the Jazz Orchestra Of The Concertgebouw.

Also he recorded as a special clarinet soloist with the Metropole Orchestra with Laura Fygi (2004). As a leader he performed several times at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Smalls Jazz Club in NYC, among other places. In October 2008 he did a European release tour with Ari Hoenig, Aaron Goldberg and Johannes Weidenmueller to promote his debute album ‘Introducing Joris Roelofs’. In 2009 and 2010 Joris did a quartet tour in Europe with Aaron Goldberg, Reginald Veal, Joe Sanders, Greg Hutchinson.

Joris also plays in the Chambertones Trio, with Jesse van Ruller and Clemens van der Feen. They released two albums: ‘Chamber Tones’ and ‘The Ninth Planet’, and did a release tour in Japan for each album. Joris’ last CD ‘Live At The Bimhuis’ was released in 2011 and was nominated for a Edison in 2012. He founded another trio in 2011 with Ted Poor and Matt Penman, featuring Joris on bass clarinet. They did a tour in 2011 and 2013, and their new album will be released in January. As a sideman Joris has played at a large number of international jazz festivals and jazz clubs, all over the world. He moved to New York City in March 2008, and moved back to Amsterdam in 2011.

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