Biography
Marking her 65th birthday together with 25 years as a composer and bandleader, Dutch violist Ig Henneman formed a sextet of improvising kindred spirits in December 2010 and launched a European tour. The lineup featured reedman Ab Baars—also Henneman’s husband—on tenor saxophone, clarinet, and shakuhachi; bassist Wilbert de Joode, who had appeared in nearly every ensemble Henneman had led up to that point; pianists Marilyn Lerner and clarinetist Lori Freedman, the two Canadians from the Queen Mab Trio that Henneman joined in the early 2000s; and German trumpeter Axel Dörner, the sole participant without any prior performing or recording history alongside the violist.
Sixteen concerts followed, each built around compositions honoring figures who had long inspired Henneman, among them Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, Jimmy Giuffre, Misha Mengelberg, and Morton Feldman. Once the tour ended, the sextet captured its first album, Cut a Caper, at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis on December 19 and 20; the recording appeared on Henneman and Baars’s Amsterdam-based Wig imprint the following April. In June 2012 the group embarked on a circuit of Canadian festivals stretching from Montreal to Vancouver, directly after a three-week residency that Henneman and Baars began in late May at the Banff Arts Centre in Banff, Alberta. Fresh pieces written during that residency received their first performances on the tour, which closed at Vancouver’s Ironworks hall during the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Satisfied with the concert recording, Henneman authorized its unedited release as the sextet’s second album, Live @ the Ironworks Vancouver, issued by Wig in September 2012.
Sixteen concerts followed, each built around compositions honoring figures who had long inspired Henneman, among them Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, Jimmy Giuffre, Misha Mengelberg, and Morton Feldman. Once the tour ended, the sextet captured its first album, Cut a Caper, at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis on December 19 and 20; the recording appeared on Henneman and Baars’s Amsterdam-based Wig imprint the following April. In June 2012 the group embarked on a circuit of Canadian festivals stretching from Montreal to Vancouver, directly after a three-week residency that Henneman and Baars began in late May at the Banff Arts Centre in Banff, Alberta. Fresh pieces written during that residency received their first performances on the tour, which closed at Vancouver’s Ironworks hall during the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Satisfied with the concert recording, Henneman authorized its unedited release as the sextet’s second album, Live @ the Ironworks Vancouver, issued by Wig in September 2012.
Albums
