How Elektra started a few years ago: ‘What if Miles and Jimi Hendrix had the life and times to sit down in a recording studio’. A fantasy or vison as you might call it as a basis for a recording session, instead of worked out or semi worked out ideas. ‘We just went into the studio blank. No tempo. No keys. No songs. No time. No rhythm. When the red light once was on, we just started playing. Telling each other stories from our creative minds. What happened thereafter was an intense trip through our wildest musical fantasies. Happily meandering between the cosmic and earthy realities of our existence. The record had very good reviews, so we decided that it was time for a new Elektra album. More Elektra! 
‘Mind boggling! Elektra is by far the best album of the year. I doubt if Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix would have made a better album...’ – Tom Beetz, Jazzflits

Michael Varekamp Trumpet/Effects
Jerome Hol Guitar
Wiboud Burkens Keys & Effects
Manuel Hugas Bass
Erik Kooger Drums & Effects

More Elektra

9. Half wisdoms

MICHAEL VAREKAMP NARRATIVE	VOL. 1

Somehow this music is like a road movie going from one place to another. Things in my artistic life come together in Narrative. Narrative is about looking backwards and forward at the same time. And most of all, being in the now which is probably the hardest but most meaningful thing in art and life.  As a black kid growing up in the Netherlands for a long time I had no idea where I was from. But yet, I always felt a strong connection with the music (and people) of places such as New Orleans, the Caribbean, Cuba and Africa. A young kid looking for black identity. 

Attracted to different sounds then ‘just jazz’, I felt for the African thing in Louis’s music. When I went to South Africa with Fra Fra Sound in an exchange project I had a magnificent culture shock for months after we came back. We worked with Jonas Gwanga, Johnny Mekoa and later Toumani Diabaté in Mali. A note from another world. Meeting Tuaregs in the desert and kids in a township near Johannesburg. Those were all  important lessons and eye openers.  In my  trumpet life  different influences existed apparently side by side such as Louis, Miles, Cootie Williams and others. But secretly they grew more and more together, to come out on this album and stimulated me to work on the connections in my own story. My narrative.

And then there’s my musical family. I worked with most of the crew for the first time thirty years ago, sometimes even more. I met Erik the first day in the conservatory. ‘Shall we start a band?’ one of us said. The rest is history so to speak. With Efraim I formed the frontline in Vincent Henar’s Fra Fra Sound in the early nineties. For four years we toured all over the world, thinking it was the most normal thing in the world. Wiboud is my better half in the adventures of The Legends. I learned to play strictly intuitive with Jerome Hol whom I first saw in an workshop about Indian music as a student,  Harry Emmery is my bass idol for a long time and with Joshua we celebrate our reunion on this album. Narrative is a reflection of a big part part of my life and I’m very happy to share it with you.

Michael Varekamp  Trumpet/Vocals/Compositions/
Efraim Trujillo          Saxophones
Jerome Hol              Guitar/Vocals
Wiboud Burkens      Keys
Harry Emmery         Doublebass/Vocals
Erik Kooger              Drums/Vocals
Joshua Samson       Percussion

www.michaelvarekamp.nl