Discerning jazz listeners have long known that the Netherlands harbors one of the world’s great jazz scenes – and one of the most adventurous. For proof, check out such wild-assed outfits as the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra and the Willem Breuker Kollektief; for music a bit tamer but no less exploratory, try the band that lands in Chicago this week, Fra Fra Sound.
Fra Fra Sound comprises emigrants from Suriname, the Antilles, and Venezuela (as well as a homegrown Dutchman or two); together, they simmer sounds and rhythms from South America and the Caribbean in the melting pot that is modern Amsterdam. “Fra fra,” in fact, means “hybrid” in Suriname (which sits right above Brazil on South America’s north coast).
The easy thing would have been to pump those exotic rhythms and turn the band into a musical cartoon. And Lord knows, plenty of others have done just that. But Fra Fra founder and bassist Vincent Henar had a different idea from the start. In ten albums over nearly three decades, Fra Fra has built a sterling reputation precisely by not overplaying their hand, allowing the for a more subtle and ultimately satisfying interplay of spicy rhythms and jazz harmonies.
Fra Fra’s visit to Chicago this week includes several performances and one interactive event. The band plays 9:30 Wednesday night at the Old Town School of Folk Music (4454 N. Lincoln, www.oldtownschool.org/); 7 PM Thursday at the Cultural Center (78 E. Washington, www.chicagoculturalcenter.org/); and 7 PM Friday at Columbia College (1014 S. Michigan, www.colum.edu/).
All those concerts are free. On Thursday at 6, Fra Fra’s master percussionist Carlo Hoop conducts a workshop in Surinamese percussion ($20) at the Old Town School, featuring the repatriated Chicago trombonist TS Galloway, who worked with the band when he lived in the Netherlands during the 1990s.
It’s not exactly going Dutch, but it’s close enough for jazz.
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