With Avishai Cohen & Shai Maestro and Go Go Penguin!
4 Limburg cities, 1 jazz festival. From 1 to 15 April 2023, the whole of Limburg will breathe jazz music during JazzOut Fest Limburg! What makes this festival so unique is that every day a festival takes place at a different location in Limburg. Each time with a complete and own festival program in which local, national and world top go hand in hand. Swirling line-ups with diverse jazz styles, from old school to the sound of today and tomorrow, and crossovers with soul, funk, hip-hop, pop and classical. In Heerlen you can see:

Avishai Cohen & Shai Maestro (ISR)
Go Go Penguin (UK)
Roda Da Holanda
Kika Sprangers Quintet
Brintex collective
Juicy (BE)
Bart Oostindie invites
Go to jazzoutfest.com for all the news about the festival. View the timetable below.

Avishai Cohen & Shai Maestro
On Saturday, April 8, Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen and jazz pianist Shai Maestro will come to Parkstad Limburg Theaters in Heerlen with a specially curated project. Both artists are known for their distinctive sound and belong to the top of contemporary jazz.
Avishai Cohen is recognized worldwide as a musician with a distinct sound and a searching spirit who quickly won the hearts of jazz aficionados. Cohen combines the melancholy musical undertone of his native Israel with American jazz. He does this both in his own compositions and in his own interpretations of music by Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman, among others. From the age of ten he played solos in big bands and moved from Israel to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. He released his last album Naked Truth in 2022 on which you will find a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound.

Israeli Shai Maestro is one of the most talented pianists of his generation. Since his debut with his own trio in 2011, Shai has been impressing the world with his smooth, harmonious and meditative sound. Shai started playing classical piano at the age of five. After hearing Oscar Peterson at the age of eight, he became addicted to jazz. In his work he mixes jazz with influences from Eastern music, including from his native Israel. Until 2011 he was bassist Avishai Cohen’s regular pianist. With his last two albums on the renowned label ECM, produced by Manfred Eicher, Shai Maestro immediately joins the line of famous jazz pianists who have defined the label such as Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley and Chick Corea. Shai’s most recent album, Human, was released in 2021 and is cinematic, challenging yet accessible and recognizable in every emotion.

GoGo Penguin (UK)
GoGo Penguin cannot be pigeonholed. The trio from Manchester describes their unique sound as “acoustic electronica” and is somewhere in the middle between jazz, minimal, trip hop, rock and classical music. The band is inspired by a variety of artists, from Aphex Twin and Squarepusher to Philip Glass and glitchy movie and game soundtracks. The result is a contemporary jazz blend of energetic and always compelling compositions. In 2015, GoGo Penguin signed with legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and released their albums Man Made Object (2016), A Humdrum Star (2018) and GoGo Penguin (2020). During this concert they will not only play music from their latest album, but you will also hear new songs and old classics.

During JazzOUT 2016, GoGo penguin was described by Written in Music as “A trinity that pushes boundaries, in a way that brings jazz back to pure beauty. As far as I’m concerned, the pinnacle of JazzOut.”

Lineup: Chris Illingworth (piano), Nick Black (bass & amp), Jon Scott (drums)

Roda Da Holanda
Happiness, good vibes and the best Brazilian music, that’s what Roda Da Holanda stands for. A performance by this swinging band is all about dancing and connection; with the music and each other. The musicians sit around a table and you stand around it, just like a traditional Brazilian ‘Samba de Roda’. With uplifting rhythms, festive Brazilian samba, and a dancing and singing crowd, there’s only one thing to do, join in! When Roda da Holanda started this unique live concept five years ago, the band never dared to dream of what it is today; an irresistible party!

Kika Sprangers Quintet
Saxophonist and composer Kika Sprangers has long been recognized in the Netherlands as one of the best young talents in contemporary jazz. Now she is coming to Theater Heerlen with her Quintet. The Kika Sprangers Quintet seamlessly mixes wordless vocals with saxophone, supported by a rich, dynamic rhythm section. The result; jazz music that floats from silence to symphonic proportions without falling into kitschy clichés. Her style draws you in, but remains unpredictable, as the narrative compositions are deliberately unstructured and unexpected, and so go beyond the expectations of any audience.

Kika Sprangers received numerous awards for her work as a composer and bandleader, such as the Rogier van Otterloo Award 2021 as an aspiring composer and she currently resides at the TivoliVredenburg Utrecht as their 2-year artist-in-residence (Dutch Performing Arts ‘New’) residency (Dutch Performing Arts ‘New Makers’ program).

Brintex collective
Inspired by jazz, hip-hop, electronic music, the band Brintex Collective creates a fresh sound that immediately gives you a boost of energy. What started as a three-piece band of young musicians from Rotterdam, led by keyboardist Brenn Luite, slowly grew into a creative collaboration. Meanwhile, the band consists of 5, sometimes even 6 musicians who give a lot of color to the compositions.

They themselves describe the sound of Brintex Collective UK influenced jazz music and count acts such as Alfa Mist and Robert Glasper among their examples. Music is also on the shelf and will be released in the spring and autumn. The band has already performed at BIRDFEST, Tweetakt Festival and Motel Mozaique and recently made an impression at North Sea Jazz Festival. This fall they will release their first release.

Juicy
Futuristic R&B with a touch of nostalgia is how you can briefly describe the music of female power duo Juicy. The Belgian Julie Rens and Sasha Vovk started their career in 2016 and have since made a name for themselves all over Europe. Juicy’s hype is infiltrating ultra hip dance floors and attracting loyal fans in big cities like Paris.

Julie and Sasha use storytelling as a powerful tool to combat controversial social issues. For example, Juicy exposes profound subjects to danceable 90’s R&B grooves. With the EP ‘Cast a Spell’ from 2018, mixed by Pierre Bertrand (Roméo Elvis and Le Motel), Juicy rose to the top of the Belgian R&B and hip-hop world.

Bart Oostindie invites
Limburg guitarist Bart Oostindie not only belongs to the top of Limburg jazz, he also collaborated with absolute top musicians such as Cory Wong, Lianne La Havas and Ida Nielsen and played at North Sea Jazz, among others. In this specially curated ‘Invites’ program, Bart Oostindie gets the chance to give an exclusive concert with Luxembourg, Belgian and German established musicians to take his international musical career to the next level, among other things.

Oostindie is part of the bands Cargo Mas (BE), Jo Didderen & L’Equipe de Rêve, Vlamp and BRO. He played at major jazz festivals such as North Sea Jazz Oostindie is a much sought-after session musician who picks strings from a laundry list of albums, is always looking for an original musical angle and was born with Jazz.

Source : PLT Website