Replay the International Jazz Day !
On April 30, on the occasion of the tenth edition of International Jazz Day, Les Lundis d’Hortense and the Jazz Station organised a double virtual concert bringing together two high-level trios : L’Âme des Poètes, legendary group of the Belgian scene and the piano trio of Alex Koo, a leading figure in the young generation of Belgian jazz.
L’Âme des Poètes
L’Âme des Poètes, a trio formed in the 1990s, specializes in instrumental interpretation and improvisation of the classics of French song. They reinterpret it their way, putting all their feelings, their memories, their laughs or their tears. With them, we go back to our youth or our parents’ or grandsparents’. L’Âme des Poètes builds bridges between yesterday and today, but also between the songs themselves, changing them sometimes, showing them under other lights or giving them almost a new meaning. A concert of this trio is much more that a series of songs, it is a show full of revealing anecdotes and funny or moving comments. It is an interaction between the musicians – it’s jazz – but also between the artists and the public. With this latest project, « Le Métèque », the trio highlights all these cultures coming from elsewhere that have enriched French chanson, to remind this obviousness : it takes all types to make the world go around. And the poet is always right.
Fabien Degryse (acoustic guitar) Jean-Louis Rassinfosse (double bass) Pierre Vaiana (saxophone soprano)
Alex Koo Trio
It doesn’t happen every day that a Belgian jazz musician is praised by the world leading Downbeat Jazz Magazine with 4 stars and the words ‘Stunningly original‘. Yet it happened to Belgian-Japanese pianist Alex Koo with his latest CD ‘Appleblueseagreen‘, for which he collaborated with American icons Mark Turner and Ralph Alessi. Jazzism also praised their album with no less than four and a half stars : “Beautiful, touching, elevating“. In his home country, the young pianist has steadily earned a status as an upcoming super talent, backed by recent outstanding performances in Flagey, Handelsbeurs and NONA. His Belgian trio, together with drum legend Dré Pallemaerts and young bass virtuoso Lennart Heyndels delivers a mix of Alex’s hypnotic compositions and lyrical improvisations. The high energy and floating sound of this trio, draw the listener into a mesmerizing musical adventure.
Alex Koo (piano) Dré Pallemaerts (drums) Lennart Heyndels (double bass)