It was a stunning DNK-concert (co-production with PSWAR), last monday at OT301. We’d hoped for a big crowd, we got more than the maximum audience of about 160 to 180 persons. There was no way to fit in more. People were sitting right up to the tables of the musicians and behind them even. About 20 people were standing outside, able to listen, but not see. And they were totally silent. Otomo, Doerner, Sachiko M and Brandlmayr played their music at the lowest possible volume. It was quite an experience.

And then after the break, ‘mayhem’ broke lose when Phô started to play, as if a short-circuit occurred: fireworks. Morten Olsen (by far my favorite drummer, maybe even of all time…), Nicholas Fields (who broke his bass-peddle halfway through) & Bjornar Habbestad on flute + electronics start at the highest possible intensity of playing & stayed there for more than half an hour continuously, without ever, not even for a second, bringing it down.

Yesterday (euh, friday) another great concert at OT301 – this one organized by Colin McLean. The well-known duo of Terrie Ex & Andy Moor kicked off, playing more subtle and more varied than I’d heard ever before. Then the floor was to a freejazz blow-out of Ken Vandermark (http://www.kenvandermark.com/) and Paal Nillson-Love – another stunning drummer from Norway. And a quartet of both duo’s to end. Very nice to hear some “good old-fashioned” freejazz…

And well, monday there’s another interesting night at DNK: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/. A double bill of Kapotte Muziek (‘Broken Music”) followed by the Libanese free improv trio of Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassin. Mazen Kerbaj is the new director of STEIM and was world famous in ‘the blogoshpere’ last summer during the Israel-Libanon war because of his drawings: http://www.kerbaj.com/ & http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/.