Jasper van't Hof

Jasper van't Hof 2008

Jasper van't Hof (born June 30, 1947 in Enschede , Netherlands ) is a Dutch jazz pianist and keyboardist .

Life

His father was a jazz trumpeter, his mother a singer with classical training. At the age of five he got piano lessons. He made his first experiences in front of an audience in school bands and jazz clubs.

In the early 1970s he made his international breakthrough with Association PC , the free rock jazz group around drummer Pierre Courbois , guitarist Toto Blanke and bassist Sigi Busch . He was one of the pianists who played the e-piano and organ in parallel and developed new sound aesthetics through electronic instruments. Van't Hof's themes and improvisations are characterized by his preference for complex, broken meters to this day . In 1972 he was voted the leading European synthesizer player in a jazz poll.

In the mid-1970s he set accents in jazz-rock with his band Pork Pie , whose name is a reference to an old Lester Young number . His team-mates were guitarist Philip Catherine and saxophonist Charlie Mariano as well as changing rhythm groups, initially JF Jenny-Clark and Aldo Romano . He then returned to the acoustic concert grand and recorded solo records.

He has been successful with the Pili Pili project since 1984 . Here European jazz is combined with African music and danceable grooves . A quarter-hour trance production with this group made him famous in the club scene . With his project Hotlips , he returned to earlier jazz-rock preferences in 2005.

Like most fusion musicians, he worked simultaneously on different projects with different musicians, such as Wolfgang Dauner , George Gruntz (piano), Trilok Gurtu (percussion), Angélique Kidjo (vocals), Wayne Krantz (guitar), Didier Lockwood (violin), Alphonse Mouzon (drums), Jean-Luc Ponty (violin) and Archie Shepp (saxophone). Until 2007 he was also a lecturer at the University of Music of the Music Academy of the City of Basel , where he was responsible for the performance area of the newly created "Producing Performance" course. In 2018 he was awarded the Boy Edgar Prize .

Discography (selection)

1971 Association PC: Sun Rotation
1974 Pork Pie: Transitory
1976 The Selfkicker
1976 Pork Pie: The Door Is Open
1977 Manfred Schoof Quintet: Scales
1977 However
1978 Flowers All Over - solo album
1979 Philip Catherine, Charlie Mariano, Jasper Van't Hof: Sleep My Love
1982 Jasper Van't Hof / Joachim Kühn: Balloons
1982 Archie Shepp, Jasper van't Hof: Mama Rose
1984 Pili Pili
1985 Pili Pili: Hoomba Hoomba
1988 Pili Pili Be in Two Minds (with Angélique Kidjo )
1992 Pili Pili: Stolen Moments
2001 Jasper van't Hof, Charlie Mariano with Steve Swallow : Brutto Tempo
2002 Pili Pili: Ballads of Timbuktu
2003 Axioma , piano solo
2005 Hotlips: Neverneverland
2009 Charlie Mariano with Philip Catherine and Jasper van't Hof: The Great Concert
2011 Pili Pili: Ukuba Noma Unkungabi
2016 No Hard Shoulder - with Dick de Graaf , Stefan Lievestro , Jamie Peet
2017 Featuring - with Reto Weber
2017 Jazz because - anniversary album for the 70th birthday with 2 live and 2 studio CDs
2019 Three of a Kind , with Stefan Lievestro, Jamie Peet

Web links

Commons : Jasper van't Hof - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Jazz album of the week (NDR)

personal data
SURNAME	Hof, Jasper van't
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch jazz pianist and keyboard player
DATE OF BIRTH	June 30, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH	Enschede

[1] Jazz album of the week (NDR)