Lineup for Bimhuis’ 50th Reflects Historic Venue’s Sense of Variety

By Peter Margasak I Oct. 22, 2024

Tenor saxophonist Hans Dulfer performs with his new quartet during a recent show at Bimhuis.
(Photo: Govert Driesen)
Oscar Jan Hoogland‘s epic program “Trip Through the Years” essayed numerous threads of the Bim’s legacy.
(Photo: Govert Driesen)
Pianist Marta Warelis, right, debuted an international sextet at Bimhuis earlier this month.
(Photo: Rogier Boogaard)

While some international jazz venues have been in continuous operation longer than the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, it’s hard to think of another spot that has celebrated and elevated the full spectrum of jazz and improvised music with the same attention to detail, stylistic breadth and creativity. During the month of October the venue has been celebrating its 50th anniversary with a dynamic program that might not look much different from what the venue typically offers, but upon closer inspection the lineup has reflected that innate sense of variety, both in observing its rich past by engaging veteran figures who helped make the Bimhuis what it is and by embracing its future by accessing the increasingly cosmopolitan makeup of the city’s population.

The venue opened back in 1974 in an old furniture showroom on the Oude Schans near Amsterdam’s red light district, as an initiative launched by some of the city’s most adventurous and enterprising musicians: reedists Hans Dulfer and Willem Breuker, trombonist Willem Van Manen and pianist Misha Mengelberg, among others. “I got involved a year later, by accident, and I never left,” says Huub van Riel, who did, indeed, step down in 2017 after programming the venue for more than four decades. If any single person defines the Bimhuis, it’s van Riel, a fervent jazz expert with voracious tastes and a knack for wicked storytelling. When he discusses his role at Bimhuis he relentlessly veers off on tangents, relaying stories about Von Freeman, Sun Ra or Sam Rivers. Under his leadership the venue became a legendary spot that played host to every conceivable stripe of jazz across its rich history, yet as often as legendary figures from the hard-bop era performed on its cozy stage, the venue remains known best for both fostering a real community of European jazz practitioners, as well as creating contexts for them to meaningfully connect and collaborate with some of the greatest American artists.

During his lengthy tenure, van Riel occasionally organized ambitious gatherings marked by inspired collaboration. In 1987 and again in 1991, multi-day endeavors brought together the cream of the crop of both European and American figures. Just imagine Cecil Taylor, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Fred Van Hove, Marilyn Crispell, Archie Shepp and most of the crucial Dutch figures of the time, including Mengelberg, Han Bennink, Ab Baars and Guus Janssen. A year before retiring, van Riel did it again, this time focusing on a younger generation of European players, with a gathering that launched some of the most impressive and ongoing partnerships of our current time, whether the duo of British pianist Alexander Hawkins and Swedish singer Sofia Jernberg and Punkt.Vrt.Plastik, the trio of pianist Kaja Draksler, bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Christian Lillinger. He also oversaw the venue’s 2005 relocation from the rustic Oude Scans location into its jewel-like presence within the tony Muziekgebouw, a black box physically jutting out from the larger structure that is the city’s storied home for contemporary classical music. In 2019 the Bimhuis installed a multi-camera setup for live streaming certain performances on its video and online audio channels, months before the pandemic led countless other presenters to follow suit.

The Bimhuis continues to foment such creative endeavors, not only during the present celebration, but year-round. In 2018 Frank van Berkel took over programming the venue, charged with making the Bim more sustainable in an era when jazz and improvised music were declining in the marketplace. He has reflected changing tastes and trends, as jazz has become more porous and adaptable to outside influences, whether hip-hop, African music or the plethora of Latin and South American styles imported largely by the massive contingent of non-local students at the prestigious Conservatorium van Amsterdam. More recently, van Berkel has been assisted by Shane Burmania since the beginning of the year. Under his direction the Bimhuis has expanded its programming, placing a greater emphasis on global styles as Amsterdam’s community of musicians has become international. “We don’t create a community,” says Burmania. “But we’re very aware of community, and the space is somehow community-driven. The Bim would be nothing without the community.” While the venue must sell tickets to be sustainable, it has forged partnerships with more experimental presenters, producing four annual concerts with Space is the Place, an improvised music platform run by Tim Sprangers that has organized more than 1,000 concerts since launching in 2015.

Under van Berkel’s leadership, the venue has initiated more community programs, including the Reflex Program, in which four artists each year are given resources to assemble, rehearse and develop a new project, including a subsequent album release. As part of the October program the remarkable Polish pianist Marta Warelis debuted a dazzling international sextet featuring drummer Frank Rosaly, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, cornetist Ben LaMar Gay and reedists Ab Baars and Karen Ng. The group premiered a new set of music facilitated by the Reflex program, once again indicating the venue’s support for the improvised music community.

The program devised by van Berkel and Burmania used different methods of celebrating the Bim’s vaunted history. Tenor saxophonist Hans Dulfer presented a new quartet on Oct. 2, while the still extant ICP Orchestra, with founding member Han Bennink still on drums, performed one of its extravagantly beautiful sets a few days later. A reconstituted lineup of Willem Breuker’s legendary Kollektief — featuring some original members and a clutch of younger musicians — celebrated the late bandleader’s theatrical legacy last weekend. Earlier in the month, the audacious keyboardist Oscar Jan Hoogland presented an epic program titled “Trip Through the Years,” which essayed numerous threads of the Bim’s legacy, threading together music by Amsterdam scene greats like Mengelberg, Cor Fuhler and Sean Bergin, with styles adapted from South Africa, Ethiopia and Chicago.

“I think the idea for this month was not to summarize the history, but to respect the shoulders, where we stand,” explains Burmania. “Not to only be nostalgic and look back, but also to bring it forward and focus on new generations and also give them a spot.”

Burmania, an Amsterdam native who says he grew up on van Riel’s programming, is excited about the future. Speaking of his relatively new role at Bimhuis, he says, “Of course, it’s intimidating, but it’s also inspiring. We have to look forward and get it into the next decade and see what’s happening and ignite it with new audiences. And we can’t do that by copying what’s been done.” DB