2012 Spring Tour
The new year has brought lots of great energy and vibes. After our concert at the renown cutting-edge avant garde State-X New Forms Festival, right before Christmas, we bubbled down the outlines of an upcoming 2012 tour. State-X first off, was absolutely amazing. Besides loads of fun and laughs backstage, we where blessed to invite an American poet, Sharrif SImmons to join us on stage. In the afternoon Mike, Ghasem & Sharrif had an extensive interview, by SImone Zeefuik on the history of spoken words and jazz music. We ended up talking for more than one hour discussing the essential topics, history, Ghasem's and Sharrif's past and TMC itself. The concert blasted off around 11pm in the Paard van Troje, where we performed in 2010 as well, during our Autums Sessions tour. We played six (!) new TMC compositions and added improvisational aspects by Sharrif's poetry and percussive energies by Jasper den Dulk. Check out the State-X video's we posted on the website! This set the standard for a new set and groove for upcoming live dates in 2012... which will be quite amazing! It all starts this Spring, when the flowers start to blossom, the kids behind the mirror will as well. We will perform the great poptemple Paradiso Amsterdam on March 15th and then flow on to Tivoli Utrecht. Both concerts we will be accompanied by the kindred spirits withing the Rotterdam scene, The New Earth Group. Then onto April, where we will have our first concert outside The Netherlands! We are very proud and honored to be invited by the C-mine Jazz Festival, Genk Belgium beside a.o. Miroslav Vitous (Weather Report), Mulatu Astatke and Lizz Wright! More live dates are to be announced in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned and keep our Facebook Page, Twitter account and the Live section in check.... and we can proudly say we will be travelling a lot outside the convenient confines of the lowlands. You can already get your tickets for the Spring tour at the websites of the venues and ticketservice See you soon!
Carrousel & Upcoming 2012 tour
The summer has ended and late August we kicked-off a new season filled with composing, new adventures and conspiracy. So far, we are working diligently on our second album which will be called "Carrousel". We recorded five brand new compositions in Studio SanteBoutique and will be recording another few this fall, which will be produced as well the coming period. The sound will differ from Mozaic, having different approaches create a palet of endless collective creation. Inspired by what we feel and the turbulent times we live in we carefully create an emotion which appeals to the contemporary imagination. We hope to release "Carrousel" by 2012. Besides composing, we are working on what we do best: our live show. Preparations for a very special concert at a renown festival this winter at State-X New Forms are up and running. Flying in a special freind from the USA, spoken words artist Sharrif Simmons! An Interview and Q&A for the audience will be held at Creatiefhuis HOOP at 4pm and show will kick off around 10.30pm! 2012 promises to be an amazing year. We will be touring The Netherlands together with kindred spirit band The New Earth Group, playing at a.o. Paradiso Amsterdam and Tivoli Utrecht. After this very exciting dates are to be added the coming days .... crossing border perhaps?
Check out our LIve Section for more! Stay tuned, we might release some snippets and video's from the drawing boards through our Facebook page. Make sure to pay us a visit and 'like' us to stay updated on the latest developments!
TMC at Doelen Concertgebouw, 22tracks and North Sea Jazz Round Town
We have studio recordings coming up in June and the 1st of July we will perform a bunch of new stuff at the North Sea Jazz fringe-festival called North Sea Round Town. They feature 'Live in Your Livingroom' sessions and we will be their guest in someone's home. TMC at it's best! We did one two years ago and it was amazing, so don't miss out. We will also be joined by the renown American spoken words artist Sharrif Simmons and do recordings for his documentary 'The Spoken World Project'. Visit our Facebook page for exclusive video recordings of this concert courtesy to Jaime Buitrago! As we quietly retreat in our two music headquarters, Continental Chilling Agencies and Lairesseland, composing and writing new songs for our second album, TMC had some nice treats. 'Parapira' has been featured in the Funk/Jazz playlist of the infamous musicsite 22tracks.com.
Last but not least, the VPRO and Radio 6 have been focussing on TMC and our endeavours lately, broadcasting our total MusicMeeting concert with Erik Truffaz live and our latest MRCLASH concert in the beautiful classical concerthall De Doelen (Willem Burgerzaal), featuring Arts The Beatdoctor (known from a.o. The Q4). The set we arranged together with Arts is called a 'Revolutionary Improvisation in Em' with live-visuals by David Louf. Check out the recordings right here: TMC ft. ATB LIVE
2010 Autumn Sessions Tour... winter time
As winter arrives on the shores of Rotterdam, we ended the fall season with our Autumn Sessions tour. Couple of new songs came by, poetry and a mozaic of sounds, sketching and painting with the seasonal chill. First we started at the beautiful headquarters of Studio SanteBoutique in Rotterdam, for a fruitful recording session of two new tunes, 'Bobby Johnson' and 'Microwave'. Looking forward, thoughts of a second album are haunting our minds. Maybe a special live edition of Mozaic ... who knows...
On Friday November 12, we performed at Paard van Troje (The Hague) with the lovely but dark pop-noir sounds of The Bullfight supporting us. The concert was an excellent opportunity to try out another special tune called 'Bleep!'. This tune, reflects the disturbed society we live in now, empowered by the poem 'Song from Sungrebe', written by Ghasem Batamuntu. You can read a review of the concert here at VPRO's 3voor12 The Hague.
On Thursday November 18, we where very proud to perform at the reknown Festival Jazz International Rotterdam together with guest artist and friend, french trumpeter Erik Truffaz ! The concert took place at the beautiful sold out World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam. We where annouced by pianist and guest-programmer Michiel Borstlap. A special moment for us, humbled by the kind words of this great artist. Visual artist Marin de Jong produced dreamy visual collages before and after the show. We performed our longest concert yet, pumping TMC vibes for about 2 full hours. We played 'The Beach', the new tunes and ended with cramps in the fingers with Glass House. Check out a review on VPRO 3voor12. A lot of pictures where made by photographers, a.o. Roberto Tjalondo and Peter de Hoog. Video clips and more imagery will appear soon on the website. More sneakpeaks on our facebook!
We invited a young and very talented art director/designer/photographer Marcel van Zwieten to shoot a documentary in images during this special day. He tagged a long early in the afternoon and captured the essence of TMC, our music and friendship. The documentary will be online soon! Click here a sneak preview.
We closed our Autumn Sessions with a special performance at Club Panama in Amsterdam. We performed 'Glass House', new song 'Bobby Johnson' and 'Trees' live on Dutch national radio, NTR Radio 6 (Mijke's Middag). The performance had a special moment when Efraim Trujillo (The Ploctones) and Gijs Levelt (StriCat) joined with their horns on Tubbs' Dentist. You can also listen to the recorded live tracks at the website of NTR Radio 6 right here.
Edison Jazz 2010 nomination
We are very proud and thankful that our debutalbum MOZAIC is nominated for for an EDISON Jazz Publieksprijs 2010! The Edison is one of the oldest music awards in the world and the oldest in The Netherlands. Since 1960, this 'Dutch Grammy' awards "sound recordings of exceptional quality ".
After a sizzling couple of months in which you were able to cast your vote on Mozaic or nine other fantastic albums the final score came in last week. Proud to announce that we came in 5th! Above us a reknown artists like Benjamin Herman, Rob van de Wouw, Sven Hammond Soul, and Michiel Borstlap.
Very grateful for all the people who dig TMC and took a couple of minutes to vote.
THANK YOU!!!
TMC Spring Sessions 2010
After the release of our debutalbum 'Mozaic' at Paradiso Amsterdam last January, we continued at three great festivals where we shared our vibe, live in concert ! Starting off at the NuMoon Festival, we cruised on towards the 26th MusicMeeting. Joined by Erik Truffaz we played a 60 minute set in front of a massive crowd, improvising and pumping the TMC vibes into a dreamy collage of colors. We closed the spring sessions at reknown Dunya Festival in Rotterdam, which was an excellent finish.
Summer is coming up and we will have some surprises for you. Meanwhile you can check out images of the gigs and you can listen to the complete MusicMeeting gig with Erik Truffaz on NPS Radio 6 and some clips from our Numoon gig on NPS Cultura TV. We will work on a couple of new grooves coming period to return soon enough. Enjoy the sun and see you soon !
We concluded the Spring sessions in the special month of May, at the wonderful Dunya Festival. Dunya Festival is one of the largest world performing arts festival in the Netherlands. Many acclaimed artists, young talents from all corners of the world, big names in world music, and storytellers and poets at Dunya annually attract more than 200,000 visitors. We performed at the South Park stage at 20:50u. Other cool artists at Dunya were a.o. Ethiopiques, Cubob City Band, Tony Allen and Ntjamrosie. More info here. Check out some images courtesy to Orante Foto.
Numoon Weekender is the follow-up of the succesful Numoonfest, entailing in a cross-mediamix of nu-jazz, crossover, poetry, film & visuals. The concerts were recorded on May 15th, this year and kicked off our Spring-sessions. The concert were broadcast on Dutch national television and online on NPS Cultura and Cultura 24. Other artists performed were The Q4, State of Monc & special guest Colonel Red (UK). Check out some foto's by Tom Kleyn at the Images Gallery.
Very proud to perform at the international world music festival, 26th Music Meeting at the beautiful Park Brakkestein in Holland's oldest city Nijmegen, Here we were joined by an infamous artist from France, Erik Truffaz on trumpet. We played at stage de Haai at 21:30u and were at the Mezzo tent earlier a live interview for NPS Radio6 and the Mixed Media Lounge. Other artists a.o. The Ploctones (NL), Jimi Tenor/Tony Allen (Fin/Nig) and also Vieux Farka Toure (Mali). You can listen to the whole concert (courtesy to NPS Radio6) here. Check out foto's by Tom Kleyn at the Images Gallery. Videoclips will follow soon.
