Lucas van Merwijk Drums, Ed Verhoeff Gitaar, Arno Krijger Hammond
Due to the technical limitations the early jazz-recording artists were limited in time and possibilities. The 78 RPM records would only allow the musicians a maximum of 3,5 minute. An exceptionally long tune might take both sides of the disc. So you had to turn it over to be able to hear the second part of the piece. In later years they would, on occasion, forego the melody all together and start soloing immediately, thereby making the most use of the valuable disc space.
We, in our days, enjoy the boundless amount of Gigabytes and plugins to record and re-record our songs and solos. Besides, we allow ourselves a lot of time to let the music develop, giving the artist the freedom to express himself and show his mastery.
As much as we enjoy the technical freedom of modern studio techniques, and enjoy the freedom it provides us as being expressive jazz musicians, we wanted to see what would happen if we would give ourselves the time limitation as in the ‘old days’. We thought it would be a challenge and an adventure to see how things would work out using this time and technical limitation in today's jazz recording process. To try to tell a well rounded, to the point, musical story in a limited amount of time. A little miniature if you like.
At first it wasn’t easy, being used to stretch out in the solo parts. But, funnily enough, along the way, we started to enjoy it as we discovered that this way of working gave us an advantage: It gave us the freedom to move between different genres without being afraid to lose the unity of sound and concept. Strongly guaranteed by the proven band-formula: The combination of organ, guitar and drums.
The limited length of the pieces now had become the concept. We really enjoyed this way of working as it made us (again) aware of the core we wanted to bring across. Hope you enjoy the result, now to be heard here on this album.
