The biography of the only thirty-year-old Dutch reed player Joris Roelofs can almost be read as a shopping list of important international awards and collaborations with big names in jazz. A list that is so dizzy that we will limit ourselves to mentioning his prominent roles in the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and the unsurpassed chamber jazz trio Chamber Tones with guitarist Jesse van Ruller.
Alien Deliberating is his third album as a band leader and successor to the live album Live At The Bimhuis (2011). This time Roelofs does not limit himself to the bass clarinet, but seems to explore and utilize this special instrument (especially Eric Dolphy liked to use it) until the last valve. Accompanied by a tightly playing rhythm section, Roelofs plays erratic, nimble and free in, for example, a number of short soundcapes, to come home just as easily in a moody performance of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Lady. In terms of atmosphere, Alien Deliberating is sometimes reminiscent of early work by Dutch jazz absurdists Willem Breuker and Misha Mengelberg, but it remains a pure jazz album that effortlessly places itself on the above list of highlights. (MR)more
