Through their committed dedication and passion they created a new sound to hear with different interactions of rhythms and vocals

their compositions are magical, dynamic, romantic all you  want to name it.

 

A precious gift for Jazz 

 

How did we all met?

 

AA: I met Anthony Davis in the Hague where I saw him playing and really got interested. I started to go to see him play drums every week and every time. I just watch and listened. At one point Anthony came up to me, and said, I am going nowhere, so lets play together now, so we did. And when we started to play there was that ‘special’  musically energy between us. So creative and the musical synergy that it gives while playing was intense.

During the time we were working on the London Zoo project and all the while Anthony was saying in my ear, we should starts a trio. And then he said I know a base player, let us get together and just play. Why don’t we play sometime. So I got the idea when we do get together just let us play one song Nefertiti, the Wayne Shorter tune of the Miles Davis song and Wayne Shorter. And that was a sort of a deal that we made. He called Andor, because I had not met him before, and he told him that he met this piano player and when the time is right that we meet all together.

 

So I learned how to play Nefertiti. A couple of months went by and finally we set it up and met in a practice room and we did this for 3 or 4 hours. I recorded it on my Iphone, and when I got home, I listened to it, and I was like, there is something going on here!

What we did for the next few months, we met ones a week, we only played Nefertiti, and that experience caused us to go deeper and deeper and eventually we got to play and we decided to rehearse for a year and a half.  We were talking deep talks about music and creativity and all the things what is necessary to achieve. That is pretty much how it happens.

 

II The different traditions in music

 

Andrew he comes from the Gypsy music tradition and Anthony is a real Michael Ballroom blues kind of background. He played the blues.

My story is different. The piano interested me and I kind of start doing it at the age of twelve. I played all kind of stuff I grew up while listening to the radio like anyone else.  The piano moved me, and that is why it got my interest and at some point I was trying to play the piano. I worked in a CD store on

high school and there was someone who introduced me to all kind of music.

(who was that?) like Cocktail Twins,  stuff  That jazz

My musical dilemma was always like how do I bring all these things together. How do

I bring the pop, jazz and classical music together. That inspires me. My journey is to try to get that unique expression and a bunch of different styles.

 

MS: Your mission or journey have turn out wonderful. It is of course the three of you together who created this landscape of musical wonderland. Its like a map you can foiled out while the styles and rhythm is still there,  which create this unique musical expression.
 

What is typical for all three off you?

We all have the willingness to do it. We are all in different places in our own lives but also in our personal and musical development. Doing this together and provide the place to exercise, in our personal world and that all comes together when we start working. We all decided that we were willing to do it and that is how we pulled it of.

 

We are very different people with a different background, musically, culturally, personally. If you kind of talk to three of us, you hardly can imagine how we can work that great together. We are all ourselves. Our journey comes from deep inside of us.  That creates a unique mix of styles. Somewhere between the three of us, we understand music, it is something much deeper than jazz. We all understand that and we all figure it out in our own way. That gives us three an opportunity that. Musically we are soul mates.

 

Everybody I guess knows this beautiful song Mr. Bo Jangles.

About Bojangles,

What does the song mister Bojangles means for you?

 

I heard that song when I was a child and yeah, that song I remember because it gave you a certain kind of feeling. I never forgot it.

How I came to the idea to play it was because of my partners father had a lot of old records. I was telling him I was into record collecting. Mr Bo Jangles on a 45 single of Nina Simone. so I started to listen again and again. Actually when we started to play that song it was very random at first. When we had a last rehearsal we played randomly and I thought he, lets do Mr. Bojangles. We hadn’t talked about it before and I just very quickly pulled it out of my head and played it. And that was a transition point for us. I still have that recording and that was really special. At one point it finally comes together and I played the recording back. I listen and wow, I think we elevated the song Mr. Bojangles to a new level.
 

What happened was, after that, we have not played it live for a while, because as you said it is very sensitive tune, deception it difficult to play it well. Capture the feeling the whole song through, and that arrangement we do came to me spontaneously, it took us a long while to actually touch it properly. The first time we played I, it was fantastic, but we worked harder together to get the sensitive touch through the whole arrangement. After a year work, we captured the touch.

 

I like to be travelling, playing music, that has always been my goal. But it is easier said than done.  When you do something it is just  When you trying to keep it real and be honest its extreme battle especially because the market changed. You don’t want to destroy what you are doing, you know. Yes and that can make it complicated. Where ever Altered Destiny is, we will always be making music. I want to travel and don’t want to distraction. It is not always about being good, I am learning about things this is special stuff. I love to have the energy with the people / audience. That is essential for all of us.

Young and music

Anybody with average intelligence and discipline can learn to play an instrument. That is the easy part. To make the music is a challenge. If you really want to make music, go totally inside in yourself, meet up your challenges, open yourself,  build up your strength and keep your honesty. Sacrifice yourself in order  Because you will be constantly challenged by yourself instead of everything outside of you.

 

I will tell  every young person, learn your instrument, is the first part, the real part is the lifelong artistic challenge and the meaning for yourself. You know how well you doing by the results of your musical creation output. That will tell you when you are right. Maybe I didn’t feel that great today but the people comes up to me and saying ‘This is what I felt and experienced’. That is when you know you are doing it right, that should be the measure.

 

Focus on yourself

Focus on your inner self

Be who your are and don’t sacrifice for anything.   

 

Text: Pushing Music Forward Foundation/ M.Scheepers