Happy New Year, I know it’s a bit late but better late then never!

So what have I been up to?

Celebrating the last days on earth and celebrating that nothing happened (those Maya’s..) ..

ALSO

with the Jacquelines we’re preparing the release party of our first CD! Check www.thejacquelines.be for more info! You can still order tickets. It’s on the 24th of january. After this release concert there will be a little FNAC-tour around Flanders.  At the end of this year we will do a tour in the major Cultural Centers in Belgium and a little club tour at the end of March. For the rest we will play at some nice festivals during the summer!

The new videoclip from the new single of The Jacquelines is also online now. Check it here.

with Shakara United we are finishing the recording we did last October. Around April the CD will be there. Now they are still mixing and mastering like crazy! We will also make a video clip out of one of the songs we recorded and it will be from a tune that I wrote. That’s great and I’m honored! Really curious how it’s gonna look like. On 17th of February we will play the support act of Ebo Taylor, one of the great living legends of Afro Beat, at Trix, Antwerp. For more info check the ‘concerts‘ page. For the rest we will do some release concerts @ De Roma, Antwerp and in Charlatan in Ghent. Come and check it out. We have some crazy, funny music.

with Krema Kawa we are recording a new single. This Monday we did the drum tracks  bass, keys, guitar and also some percussion. Gonna be a fun song! Also probably we will have new tour dates in March. Probably back to the Balkan! Looking forward. During the summer we will play some nice concerts in Belgium and probably also in Madrid and stuff. The warmer the better.. Still a lot of things to be confirmed.

I’ve been writing some new arrangements for wind orchestra and mixed choir. I’ll do 10 of them for the concert the orchestra will do in November. Fun work! 

I’m also planning a recording session with Jelle Van Giel Group somewhere around April.  Hope it will work to get all my (soooo busy) musicians together and record the music. We will play a concert @ De Lokerse Jazzclub on february 2nd. Join the good vibes! Check it here.

in between I’m teaching my students how to hit the drums and working a lot for school, studying classical 4-part writing, orchestrating sonatas from Mozart, Tchaikovsky  .. to symphonies, learning to conduct, writing a lot for Kris Defoort and trying to write some big band arrangements. Fun but loooots of work!!

That’s it for now. Stay tuned and hope to cu soon at one of the concerts!

All the best,

J

We managed to get at number 1 with Krema Kawa in the hit chart of UnoDeCincuentayuno. That’s really great news! After 18 weeks.. We can stay there longer if you vote for us so please do! Hopefully this means that we will go to the south of europe soon to play some concerts! (getting cold here) Some Belgian press already picked it up and wrote something about it.

With Shakara United we just recorded our first CD and it sounds really nice! Everybody played at their very best. The vibe was great, especially in the 2th and 3th day. We still need to do the vocals and some mixing and mastering and hopefully the CD/LP will be there from february 2013 on. Keep you posted!

We also did a tour with Krema Kawa in Vienna – Austria, Budapest – Hungary, Velenje – Slovenia and Ptuj – Slovenia. We played in little, nice clubs. We did 1 gig for television in Hungary. Curious how it looks like. To much crazy faces probably.. Anyway, it was a very nice tour and we managed to see some nice things in the cities we were in. We have a little teaser from the trip. The roadmovie will follow soon.

I think I also fell in love with Ptuj. It’s like the oldest city of Slovenia and is very pittoresque and colorfull. So beautiful! Fun times, and hopefully we can do a tour like this in Spain very soon.                                                

The live recordings we made with Jelle Van Giel Group last september at De Singer are not usable so probably we will get in the studio soon to make the recording ‘Songs for Everyone’. Hope it will work out. Also we have a new member, Steven Delannoye on tenorsax. He’s gonna replace Peter Hermesdorf. I want to thank Peter for the nice music and moments we made together!                                                                                       

With the Jacquelines we are in the top 50 of the VOX-list of Radio 1. You can vote for us so we can get our first single ”Hypochondria” to number 1! If you vote before 10/11/12 you have to use this link. Afterwards it’s this one. Thanks in advance!!

                                                             - last but not least - 

INTERESTING: Something i recently read. Written by Kurt Van Eeghem, a Belgian TV presentator, Radio maker, knowallandeverything. His view of how to save the future: ‘Kan kunst de wereld redden’. I think he’s very, very right..

Next week I will start my lessons at the Conservatory of Brussels! That’s right, Jelle’s 

gonna study a bit more. This time no drums but composition with Kris Defoort. Really looking forward working with Kris!                                            Also it’s nice to be more in Brussels and I’m starting to appreciate it much more then before. Also met some very nice musicians when I went there once for a jamsession.

                    (Conservatory, beautiful building)

At the end of october we’re gonna do another, bigger European tour with Krema Kawa. We’ll travel like 12 days and are going to play in some very nice clubs. I’ll keep you posted about where and when.. So come back and check it!

I also wrote an arrangement for wind orchestra and choir and they rehearsed it and told me it sounds really nice, so I’m very happy about that! I didn’t know how it would sound with the full orchestra because I don’t have enough experience for that, but now it will grow. That’s also partly why I wanted to do it. It was a very interesting thing to do and they asked me to make more arrangements later this year.. Maybe I could record it when they perform them live. Then I’ll put it here so you could check it.

For the rest I’m doing some fun recordings with NeoNerd and also with Shakara United (a really nice Afrobeat project I play in, it’s gonna be in october).With my band, Jelle Van Giel Group, we did a live recording last friday (14/09/2012) and it went really well. Now I’m checking the multitracks of the concert and it sounds really nice. 

Hopefully I can manage to get a CD out of it..             Also there are some plans with Jelle Van Giel Group and China and something with Australian Radio.. Come back for that later on this year if you’re curious about what I mean.. 

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading!

Hi all,

long time since I wrote something here, again

My summer is pretty busy with some nice ‘out-of-the-country’ concerts.

With Krema Kawa we did some touring in Fuerteventura and Switzerland already, was great (!), and next week 

we’ll go to Hungary and Czech Republic.

Going strong with this band (In september maybe playing in Marocco)!

also listed in the most important top 50 music list in Spain! And now MnM, the Belgian radio, is also getting us in their top 50 list. Exciting!

I’m also doing some writing. I recently wrote an arrangement for wind orchestra and choir. It was quite a challenge but I think I managed. Also planning to study composition from next year on. Just for the fun of it.

Also The Jacquelines are ready for ‘booming’. More about that later (keep posted!)

Fun, busy times!

Thanks for staying in touch.

.

Hi all!

Little update.

Tomorrow, 26/04, I’ll be playing @ Dranouter Bad with Krema Kawa.

28/04 we play with Krema Kawa @ a private party in Stekene and afterwards @ Das Rock, starting at 01:30h.

Sunday, 29/04 @ 15h: Heldenconcert – mini bigband o.l.v. Kevin Van Staeyen.      Afterwards at 22:45h we’ll be playing with Krema Kawa @ Festival Aan Zee.

Monday 30/04 we’ll be playing with Krema Kawa @ Koninginnedag, Dongen.

For the rest I had some fun gigs with The Jacquelines. Still preparing the CD for launching!

 That’s it for now. Stay tuned!