The Fabulous Life Of `Ngazzokah

THE Fabulous LIFE OF
‘NGAZZOKAH
HOOFDSTUK 1:
B-GUN
2 play
Bram Stoeken formed the
band in 1992. This is
roughly how it happened:
In 1992 I started organizing a band trying to make
music based on partly
arranged improvisation. I
was much inspired by the
music and live shows of
Miles Davis and having
seen this the year before at
the North Sea Jazz festival
in The Hague. I started to
search for the appropiate
musicians to begin this
adventure. I had already
booked a gig at café
Vlaanderen,
at
the
Beestenmarkt. At that time
there were those strange
constructions spread over
this place. I met Arnold
Jankie, a bass player
through Barath Jagesar
whom I knew from Man E
2, a coverband playing
mostly Michael Jackson
songs. Mark Mulder, a
tenorsaxophone
player,
saw a note posted at
SPOD, up to now the rehearsal room in Delft. He
could play just a little bit
but he succesfully auditioned at my place. It was ok
for me because I wanted
to start this band quickly.
Through Mark I soon connected to Jim. They had met
during
saxlessons. I vividly remember
playing first time with Jim.
He was putting so much
energy in his playing that
knew strolling the streets of
Delft. I still needed a drummer...
The first musiscian I knew in
Delft was Sharif Alibaks
and I met him at the entrance of the Muzisch Centrum
—a student facility now
relocated at Mekelweg 10.
This was the studio 8 years
of Papua-clan. I asked his
nephew
Manpon
Manggaprow to join me
with the gig at the
Beestenmarkt. He offered
me his help and made no
further promisses. Still he
continued to play with us
for two years.
HOOFDSTUK 2:
We jammed a lot in the rehearsal
room. For instance the song
‘s T(r)angld ^ in black was develloped during 2 years by first trying
out different versions and eventually
defining and recomposing the
song with a computer program.
he turned red. It still happens today if he’s in the
mood. That rehearsal we
played Tutu. Mark and Jim
are the only ones from the
start still left in Ngazzokah.
I adored Miles so much that
I started to play a little bit
of trumpet myself. On keys
was Ton de Ruiter and the
guitarplayer
was
Erik
Thomassen. Both of them I
after we recorded the first
CD - We made an appointment to go and see a band
but he never showed up.
Finally I descided to go
myself and I arrived at a
rehearsal of Man E2. I
jammed a bit with Franklin
Kuils on drums and he
approved me as their keyboard player. There I was
and rapidly I became
friends with bassplayer
Patrick Kaisiepo, member
Compos
ing 4
the
record
Mampon left us after a
while. He wanted a more
defined structure, an argument put foreward later by
more ex-members. He was
replaced by Grignion
Schrama, also Miles-fan
whom I met at the
Koornbeurs, a place to eat
cheap. He was discussing
a concert from Miles he
attended on wednesday the
11th of november 1987
in Ahoy I had seen this
show too and he was talking about this. That time I
was very focused on Miles
so I immediately approa-
ched him. He appeared to
have a bootleg and this
was the beginning of our
friendship. I liked this recording so much that I ended
up listening to it every day
for almost 2 years. In the
meantime we played with
midi-guitarplayer Marco
Starink, and singer Ingrid
Nelson.
Erik departed for Indonesia
and rejoined us after
Angelo Schifano, a Princefan and then working at
Playland, left us for school
and education. At that time
Sander Mol played percussion with us resulting in
unforgettable actions such
as making his entrance
with a toy-pistol, wooden
shoes and a cowboy-hat.
Sometimes there were heated arguments about freedom and individual space
and interpretation of arrangements or compositions.
For others the credo was
don’t talk just play. There
problably is truth in both.
Playing with Grignion we
gradually develloped own
compositions and we jammed a lot in the rehearsal
room. For instance the song
‘s T(r)angld ^ in black was
develloped during 2 years
by first trying out different
versions and eventually
defining and recomposing
the song with a computer
program. Even recently we
included another groove
part with Bart and Dennis.
Of coarse I still have a
bunch of audiocassettes
with rehearsal recordings
and I often listened to these
while driving in my car.
Nowadays its done with
minidisk, producing a more
clear sound. Though at
some point one gets adjusted to the quality and sound
of a memo-cassette recorder with automatic rec-level
control. I think its the compression witch makes a
thick sound.
After Angelo left, Astrid
saw a peace of paper attached to the message board
at the Mekelweg It said: “I
am Ruben and I play guitar.” I called him up and
there was Ruben Strijk,
playing a gig at the student
sport facilities one week
later. He’s still playing with
us and now he's also working on his own compositions. Some-times we can
have a firm discussion but
this really shows his commitment and involvement.
When we planned a recording session with Grignion
it became clear during preparation that he didn't feel
like reworking his drumming. Fred Abozzi was willing to learn and rehearse
twelve songs within two
playing. Doing so the band
defined a new standard
and the original goal of
improvisation based on
partly arranged structures
came out clear. The playing
is interactive and dynamic
and you can hear a great
deal of tension.
HOOFDSTUK 3:
CHANGES
That time Jim and Mark
started as a horn section for
Dasband. Later Ruben joined them on trumpet. They
also rehearsed on sunday
but prior to us. Mampon
played drums and to get
full circle Angelo and Fred
stood in a few times. With
Fred and Arnold playing
The band defined a new standard
and the original goal of improvisation based on partly arranged
structures came out clear.
The playing is interactive and
dynamic and you can hear a great
deal of tension.
months. We digitally recorded the whole band at
once. Fred and Arnold,
who was becoming a
Marcus Miller-adept made
a great team. After Miles
died Marcus came close to
the sound of Miles’ last
electric band and already
composed, produced and
played Tutu and Amandla
for Miles. Portia is still on
our repertoire. The recording ended up real funky
—or I should say fonkey—
thanks to Fred’s inspired
with us Dennis and Tim
sometimesms came over to
listen to the rehearsal.
Dennis knew Jim through
the student house above the
pornshop downtown and
he couldn’t believe it when
he heared us play. I think
that time he must have started playing bass. His teacher was Bobby Jacobs
who gave also lessons to
Arnold. Bobby is a nice
person and I recall jamsessions in de Pater, a club in
The Hague I often visited
not having a band of my
own yet.
Arnold
had
become
aquainted with someone
in Brabant whom he’d met
through my sister in law. He
began missing rehearsals
and it upset me because I’d
been playing with Arnold
for some ten years and I
liked his sound and slapping.
For a while Hans de Vries
joined on percussion after
answering an add at the
muzikantenbank and he
witnessed the last turbulent gig with Arnold. Hans
focused on refinement and
discipline which conflicted
with our points of view
resulting us asking him to
leave.
So Arnold moved to
Brabant and we had to
look for an new bassplayer.
On the internet Arend
Kraag noticed our add. I
was searching for the same
style Arnold had been playing and Arend sounded like
him. We could get along
very quickly. A little later
Fred planned to make
music with Patrick Kaisiepo
and Nico Moll, a very
good keyboardplayer, on a
professional level.
Through Arend, who often
made holiday trips to
Senegal and who had a
contact with Ali Ndiaye
Rose, we met Mouni
Ouedraogo,
percussion
player from Burkina Fasso.
After several auditions,
some two months Sylvia
Costa and one year Edo
Zwier on drums, he like
Mampon wanted something else, Clint Maraña
dropped in.
HOOFDSTUK 4:
NGAZZOKAH LIVE
(and
kicking!)
Clint is a real master and
he's very good at composing and graduated conservatory. He helped us a lot
with working on Waraya
from Joe Zawinul, whom I
listened to often after Miles
death. In fact Clint programmed every break
played by Paco Sery. I also
worked with him on a few
compositions
like Honk
Song and b-gun 2 understand. To us it was a great
disappointment but especially to his family a huge
drama that he’s been away
for a year due to personal
circumstances.
Through
Clint we got to know Job, a
percussionplayer who did
a few gigs with us. He’s
mad about Zawinul and
with the guys we attended
a concert of the syndicate
in
de
Boerderij
in
Zoetermeer. There I met
mister Zawinul in person
and we drank a Palinka
together and had a nice
talk while he was putting
autographes on LP’s. I
didn't expect him to be
such a nice guy.
With Arend an Clint we’ve
done a few nice gigs and
also made some good
recordings of them, even a
short video from the show
at the Beestenmarkt in Delft
during the jazz- en bluesfestival, shot by a passing
Russian. It took quite an
effort on saturday late in
the afternoon to make a
copy just before he had to
cach his plane.
While Clint was away we
rehearsed with Robert ‘Bor’
Nolden as a replacement
till SPOD holiday. During
summer I started to look out
for a new rhytmsection,
and there were especially
many auditions for bassplayers. Arend started to
playwith
OctavePussY,
together with Angelo. Later
Mark would join them.
Together with Mark, tromboneplayer Maurice Kras
and singer Marte Peeters
(all from the quitted
Dasband), with Bor and a
bassplayer who signed our
gastenboek, Geert-Jan Bol
(now
playing
with
Soulzone and organizing
amateur jazz-sessions in
Bebop in Delft), I did an
exiting gig. Hamoudda
Hissain played along. I
The auditions were finished
and Bart Aarts and Dennis
van Vondelen became
rhytmsection. With Bart
there was a good vibe
from the beginning. He is
very interactive just like
Clint. For him it was a little
strange to do an audition
only with me and a bassplayer who also auditioned
and no one else. Of course
we already knew Dennis
but we learned our lesson
to choose between alternatives and not the first musician that passed by. We
took two months time to try
and compare. Dennis finally joined us thanks mainly
to his drive and stimula. In
the beginning I had to get
adjusted to his sound that
differed from the Marcustype bassplayer. He is very
into Michael Henderson,
from the 70's Miles bands
and also Paul Jackson from
Back in rehearsal we work on
grooves, breaks arangements
compositions but most of all have
fun playing together.
know him from the time I
got in touch with Busi
Mholongo, South-African
singer who lived in the
same block. It is taped on
video.
Last time I attended North
Sea Jazz I saw Bugge
Wesseltoft who uses electronic beats and dj-grooves. I’m looking forward to
experiment in that direction. We’ll see what happens next. So far we survived all changes and
moved on and improved
bit by bit.
Back in rehearsal we work
on grooves, breaks arangements compositions but
most of all have fun playing together. If you want to
take a listen you’re allways
welcome.
More information:
Call: Bram Stoeken
+31 (0)6 - 147 111 99
Mail: [email protected]
Visit: ngazzokah.org
4 now:
let’s PLAY !
Headhunters. We were
doing little gigs and preparing new songs for a recording. Now we have to get
a new drummer because
Bart decided to focus on
other bands.
NGAZZOKAH
THE FINEST IN NGAZZ SINCE 1992