Among
saxophone players you have the cool orators, the ones squealing while short of
breath and the introvert grumblers.
Although
Ben Sluijs masters the technique to play all these voices, this Belgian
altsaxophonist remains in the first place a cautious speaker of phrases. Every
note from his horn is a carefully polished glimmer, part of a tasty chain,
maintaining the ability to surprise in solopart sideways and curves full of
fantasy. He truly belongs in the list of Belgian topacts who have visited
"BIMhuis" this year, under the label “jazz@2002.be”. The basis of
Sluijs’s repertoire is postbop, an idiom in which he operates with unknown
lyric. But he really came to superb moments in the more free composed
"Mouth Peace" which comes from his more recent work. Liberated from
the necessity to swing, values truly Sluijs’s hoarse, vibratoless tone. The intens melancholic duet "Minor
Problems" with pianist Erik Vermeulen was frightningly beautiful within its
restrained drama.
Vermeulen
established himself as a praiseworthy soloist with a preference for
unconventional chords and a sublime sensitivity for silence. The rhythmsection,
bassist Piet Verbist and drummer Eric Thielemans, shows a rich temperament that
corresponds harmonicaly with the the nuanced playing of the bandleader.
This is
not a band that gets his credit through its sofistication, but the superlative
is alwayse sought in contents. This, one could even notice in the drumsolos that
consisted of a calm elaboration of a simple pattern on sequently three drums or
a roll that lasted several minutes where the strings of the drum started a
hypnotizing humming.
It must be the unemphatic refinement that must have caused
Ben Sluijs to be an undicovered master. Trully jazz for connoisseurs.