The search for clarity in music

Interview with Harmen Fraanje

An enormous amount of flexibility

You will be performing solo at the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival in July. Last year, we witnessed the solo set you played for the Pocket Concert channel. Have you ever considered recording a solo album?

‘I’m very much looking forward to performing solo in Edinburgh. Thank you for the invitation. As it happens, the subject of a solo album is very current at the moment, because in July, just two weeks after the performance in Edinburgh, I’ll be recording a solo album at the beautiful La Buissonne Studios near Avignon, France. Last year, I recorded a quartet album there, The Songbird Sang, scheduled for release later this year, together with the French musicians Magic Malik, Brice Soniano, and Toma Gouband. I completely fell in love with the studio, its atmosphere, and the amazingly beautiful grand piano. So, I can’t wait to spend a few days in this studio documenting and recording this music.’

What do you play when performing solo? Are these pieces taken out of a group setting, or is it specifically music written or conceived for solo performance?

‘When performing solo, I prefer to keep a very open approach, allowing the state of being in the moment to shape the music as much as possible. As a solo performer, you have an enormous amount of flexibility to follow the flow of the music wherever it may lead. Since no other musicians are involved, there is no need to predefine or arrange the music in advance. There will be a mix of original compositions, improvisations, textures, little sketches, and perhaps a few jazz standards. The music is not specifically written for solo performance, but as a solo performer there is of course, the beautiful challenge, and necessity, of orchestrating all the different elements of the music yourself.’

Harmen Fraanje and Arve Henriksen

Deeply inspiring experiences

What does it mean to be an “ECM artist”?

‘I’ve been fortunate to have had several opportunities to work with the legendary producer Manfred Eicher, founder of the ECM label. These encounters have been incredibly meaningful to me, deeply inspiring experiences in terms of focus, awareness, and sound. Working with Manfred is both intense and profoundly inspiring. Another important aspect is that being an ECM artist, and releasing music through the label, with its enormous fan base and highly professional organization, greatly helps the visibility of your music.’

Is your connection with Scandinavia as strong as your discography seems to suggest?

‘I guess the answer would be yes, it is. Over the years I’ve been involved in quite a few projects with Scandinavian musicians, such as my duo with trumpeter Arve Henriksen, the trio with Mats Eilertsen and Thomas Strønen, collaborations with Trio Mediæval and Trygve Seim, and a trio with the Finnish vocalist Aino Peltomaa and viola da gamba player Mikko Perkola. There have also been collaborations with Swedish saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist. Many of these musicians have become very close friends over the years, people I also visit outside of performances and touring. I even went on holiday with Trygve Seim and our children. It started with meeting Mats Eilertsen, who was living in The Hague at the time, on one of the very last days before he returned to live in Norway. We performed together at a festival, and soon afterward he invited me to Oslo for a recording session and a series of concerts. Since then, we haven’t stopped playing together. Through Mats I met so many fantastic Scandinavian musicians, and with many of them I’ve had the chance to make music together over the years.’

To perform almost every day

More generally, can you remember how you first began building an international career as a young jazz artist?

‘Besides meeting Mats Eilertsen, another important encounter was with the French musicians Brice Soniano and Toma Gouband. We performed a single piece together during a session at the Paradox Jazz Club in Tilburg, and two months later the phone rang: Toma invited me on a two-week trio tour through the south of France. That became my very first international tour. We drove from concert to concert in a car completely packed with drums, percussion instruments – Toma also plays stones, leaves, and other elements from nature – a double bass, our suitcases, and ourselves. We called the car “The Beast”. It already had more than 500,000 kilometres on the clock, and it only stopped working a couple of years ago. I will never forget how wonderful it felt to perform almost every day with the same band, focusing entirely on music for two weeks. Absolutely fantastic.

‘Around the same time, I also started playing a lot with Ernst Reijseger and Mola Sylla. We were fortunate to perform at many wonderful festivals all over the world. We continue to play together as a trio, although less frequently than before. We would actually love to give the project a new push, because playing together still feels so special. Ernst and Mola are both now in their seventies, and they sometimes joke: “Let’s play as much as we can, while it’s still possible.”

‘With Ernst I also worked a lot on film scores for the German filmmaker Werner Herzog. By now I’ve been involved in around ten of them. Occasionally we also do small tours together with Werner.’

Harmen Fraanje, Mola Sylla & Ernst Reijseger (Photo by Krijn van Noordwijk)

Awareness and sensitivity

How do you combine composing, performing, teaching, and the business side of your work? Do you work in a very structured way?

‘On one side, I have the teaching schedule at the Conservatory of Amsterdam every Monday and Tuesday and sometimes part of Wednesday. On the other side, I try to follow the flow of things. Sometimes that means spending more time composing, and at other moments focusing mainly on practicing for a few weeks. The business side of things is something I approach in a quite structured way, often in collaboration with my band members and sometimes with booking agents as well.’

Has your interest in music changed over the years, broadened, or shifted? What influences you nowadays, as a pianist and composer?

‘What influences me at the moment is the search for clarity in music: trying to be clear in my compositions, in improvisation, and in the piano playing itself. There are so many things happening at the same time in music, so many details that all ask for attention. I hope to keep developing my awareness and sensitivity, so that even improvised music, coming from intuition, somehow creates its own kind of logic and clarity.’

Text and header photo by Mark van Schaick