Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Peter Brötzmann was a German jazz saxophonist and clarinetist regarded as a central and pioneering figure in European free jazz. Throughout his career, he released over fifty albums as a bandleader. Amongst his many collaborators were key figures in free jazz, including Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, as well as experimental musicians such as Keiji Haino and Charles Hayward. His 1968 Machine Gun became "one of the landmark albums of 20th-century free jazz".
Misha Mengelberg was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. A prominent figure in post-WWII European Jazz, Mengelberg is known for his forays into free improvisation, for bringing humor into his music, and as a leading interpreter of songs by fellow pianists Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols.
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Konrad "Conny" Bauer is a German free jazz trombonist. He is the brother of the trombonist Johannes Bauer.
John Martin Tchicai was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer.
Albert Mangelsdorff was a German jazz trombonist. Working mainly in free jazz, he was an innovator in multiphonics.
Irène Schweizer is a Swiss jazz and free improvising pianist. She was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Company was a collection of free improvising musicians. The concept was devised by guitarist Derek Bailey, in order to create challenging and artistically stimulating combinations of players, who might not otherwise have had an opportunity to work together.
Paul William Rutherford was an English free improvising trombonist.
Alexander von Schlippenbach is a German jazz pianist and composer. He came to prominence in the 1960s playing free jazz in a trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens, and as a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Since the 1980s, Von Schlippenbach has explored the work of more traditional jazz composers such as Jelly Roll Morton or Thelonious Monk.
Dutch jazz refers to the jazz music of the Netherlands. The Dutch traditionally have a vibrant jazz scene as shown by the North Sea Jazz Festival as well as other venues.
Ernst Reijseger is a Dutch cellist and composer. He specializes in avant-garde jazz, free jazz, improvised music, and contemporary classical music and often gives solo concerts. He has worked with Louis Sclavis, Derek Bailey, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Gerry Hemingway, Yo-Yo Ma, Albert Mangelsdorff, Franco D'Andrea, Joëlle Léandre, Georg Gräwe, Trilok Gurtu, and Mola Sylla, and has done several world music projects working with musicians from Sardinia, Turkey, Iran, Senegal, and Argentina, as well as the Netherlands-based group Boi Akih.
Fred Van Hove was a Belgian jazz musician and a pioneer of European free jazz. He was a pianist, accordionist, church organist, and carillonist, an improviser and a composer. In the 1960s and 1970s he performed with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer Han Bennink.
Last Date is a live album by jazz musician Eric Dolphy released in early 1965 on Limelight Records. It was recorded on June 2, 1964 in Hilversum, North Holland, shortly after Dolphy had settled in Paris, France, following a tour with Charles Mingus. Dolphy is accompanied by the Misha Mengelberg trio on the album.. The audience was an invited group of recording executives and studio personnel.
Thomas Heberer is a trumpeter, quarter-tone trumpeter, cornetist, keyboardist and composer, primarily focused on jazz, creative improvised music and contemporary chamber music. Based in New York City, he currently works as a leader and sideman in a variety of bands in Europe and the US.
Instant Composers Pool (ICP) is an independent Dutch jazz and improvised music label and orchestra. Founded in 1967, the label takes its name from the concept that improvisation is "instant composition". The ICP label has published more than 50 releases to date, with most of its releases featuring the ICP Orchestra and its members.
Fuck de Boere: Dedicated to Johnny Dyani is a live album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann containing two tracks recorded at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, Germany. Track one, "Machine Gun," was recorded on March 24, 1968, several months before the studio recording that resulted in the album of the same name, and features Brötzmann with saxophonists Willem Breuker, Gerd Dudek, and Evan Parker, pianist Fred Van Hove, bassists Buschi Niebergall and Peter Kowald, and drummers Han Bennink and Sven-Åke Johansson. On track two, the title track, recorded on March 22, 1970, Brötzmann is joined by Breuker and Parker on saxophone, Niebergall, Malcolm Griffiths, Paul Rutherford, and Willem Van Manen on trombone, Van Hove on piano and organ, Derek Bailey on guitar, and Bennink on drums. The album was released in 2001 by Atavistic Records as part of their Unheard Music Series. The album is dedicated to South African bassist Johnny Dyani, who, according to Brötzmann, frequently shouted "Fuck de boere!" when discussing life under apartheid.
3 Points and a Mountain is a live album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, pianist Misha Mengelberg, and percussionist Han Bennink. It was recorded on February 26, 1979, at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin, and was initially released on vinyl later that year by the FMP label. In 2000, FMP reissued the album on CD, with previously unreleased tracks, under the title 3 Points and a Mountain... Plus, and, in 2022, it was reissued on vinyl by the Cien Fuegos imprint of Trost Records.
Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink is an album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, pianist Fred Van Hove, and drummer Han Bennink. It was recorded on February 25, 1973, in Bremen, Germany, and was initially released on vinyl later that year by the FMP label. In 2003, it was reissued on CD by Atavistic Records as part of their Unheard Music Series, and in 2015, it was reissued on vinyl by Cien Fuegos, an imprint of Trost Records.
