Stormvogel suddenly started playing piano after watching a television show of grandmaster Oscar Peterson, at the age of 11. A rather late start for the boy, whose talents untill that day were thought to lie in the field of art and writing. Next to (and in spite of) his following classical piano education, the young pianist was drawn into the direction of improvised music, practising Peterson etudes, blues chops en boogie woogie skills. Other influences in the domain of jazzpiano came from Dave Brubeck, Errol Garner and Dutch pianist Harry Happel (for by coincidence the boy got hold of recordings of "Intrioduction").
In the mean time the young student was urging to explore the world of analoge synthesizers, saving money to buy his first machine. At the age of 16 he was touched by the music of Magma. Discovering Magma, was like a spiritual homecoming, ringed in by mystical matters and magical atmosphere, more like a surrealistic regression therapy than just listening to a progressive rockband wih some crazy friends. Suddenly he remembered in retrospective, he knew Magma from his early youth, when the world was still black & white.
After Magma, soon followed Chick Corea (Return to Forever) and Mahavishnu Orchestra, and found his way into the world of jazzrock: Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer, Joe Zawinul, George Duke, Stu Goldberg, David Sancious and -last but not least- Kahal Negumuraaht of Magma. Through the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis he was very much influenced by McCoy Tyner, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans. Other examples in the field of accoustic piano were Don Friedman, Mike Nock, Bobo Stenson, Lyle Mays and Keith Jarrett, later followed by Brad Mehldau, Larry Young, Joey Calderazzo, John Taylor, nowadays Hiromi Uehara and Gary Husband. Besides, Dutch and German pianists drew his attention, like Rob van den Broeck, Rob Madna, Joachim Kühn, nowadays Mike del Ferro, Rob van Bavel, Peter Beets, Ferial ai Karamat and -of course- his personal teachers Carwin Geising and Karel Boehlee. In the domain of classical piano he admires besides his teachers Peter Besseling and Jan de Koning, the great masters Glenn Gould, Friedrich Gulda, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter, Martha Algerich, Mitsuko Uchida, the young Chinese genius Lang Lang, the German sourceror Severin von Eckardstein and Stormvogel's personal acquaintances Claudine Carmen Roma, Paolo Giacommetti and Klara Würtz.
However, biggest influences on Stormvogel as an instrumentalist were not the named pianists and keyboardists, but the highly respected musical magicians John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Mahavishnu, Jan Hammer, Allan Holdsworth, Jan Garbarek, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and above all Christian Vander, founder of Magma, with his partners in crime from the planet Kobaïa and -le roi d'ork- Jannick Top.
As a composer Stormvogel looks for a synergy of jazz with progressive rock, combined with elements of contemporary, electronic, symphonic, classical, barok, middle-evil, german folklore, celtic music and Gregorian chant, Raga, Qawali and Pansori... Main influence are the synphonic and progressive rockgroups and rockopera's of the seventies like Jesus Christ Superstar, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jan Hammer Group, Return to Forever, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Alan Stivell, Zappa and above all... Magma (Christian Vander, Stella Vander, Jannick Top, Klaus Blasquiz, Didier Lockwood, Benoît Widemann, Bernard Paganotti and all the other Kobaïans). Other sources of inspiration: Richard Wagner, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Gayle Moran, Thelonious Monk, Sly & Robbie, George Duke, Maria Callas' Wagnerian chant, Billy Cobham, Stu Goldberg, Shakti, Narada, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Fela Kuti, Oestvolskaja, Hildegard von Bingen, early Genesis, Pink Floyd (Wish you were here), Emerson Lake & Palmer, Allan Holdsworth (Against The Clock: Naomi Star), AC/DC & Bon Scott, Carl Orff, Anton Brückner, Richard Strauss, Nelly, KC & The Sunshine Band, Aphex Twins, Square Pusher, Anita Baker, Nat King Cole, Frank Zappa (+ band!), Jack DeJohnette, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Michael Brecker, Klaus Schulz, Terry Riley, John Abercrombie ("Nights" & "Timeless"), Caldera, Mary J. Blige, Oregon, Medusa, Ten Years After, Brand X, Mark King, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Richter's Bach-cantate "Ich habe genug"...), Lenny Tristano, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, Herbie Hancock, Pergolesi, Chick Corea & Return to Forever, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Igor Strawinsky, Maurice White, Theodosii Spassov, Riverdance, Edgar Varese, Astor Piazolla, Elis Regina, Django Reinhardt, Willam Dufay, J.S.Bach, Glenn Gould, Monteverdi, Guiseppe Verdi: La Traviata (Anna Netrebko!!!), Ruggiero Leoncavallo: Il Pagliacci, Savall & Hesperion, Friedrich Gulda, Bee Gees, Charly Mariano, The Police, Gentle Giant, AKA Moon, Gong, Raymond Scott & Bob Moog, (read http://www.raymondscott.com/moog.html !!!), The Sparks, Harrie Bannink, Thelonious Monk, Arnold Schönberg, Messiaen, Pink Floyd (Wish you were here), David Sancious' True Stories, Offering, Alan Stivell, Dan Ar Bras, Brad Mehldau, Billy Joel, Tears for Fears, Talk Talk, Prefab Sprout, Danielle de Niese, Neil Diamond, Ramses Shaffy, Gary Burton, Gary Husband (also piano!), Klaus Schulze, Billie Holliday, Chet Baker, Bulgarian Voices, Bruford (+ Jeff Berlin, Stewart & Annette Peacock), Jules de Corte, Donna Summer, Yazoo, Reinbert de Leeuw, Rob de Nijs, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Jason Becker, Willi Alberti, Bobo Stenson & Anders Yormin, Jan Garbarek also with: Agnes Buen Vargas, Eberhard Weber, Hilliard Ensemble, Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, ABBA (Agneetha), Steps Ahead, Joe Zawinul, Weather Report, Wayne Shorter (Tom Brechtlein, Gary Willis & Mitchel Forman), Focus, Carl Orff, Carlos Santana (early works), Meat Loaf, Kraftwerk, Rick James, Alberto Iglesias: Banda Sonora Originals de "Hable con ella", Kate Bush, Buxtehude, Rameaux, Frank Sinatra (also with Carole King), Otis Redding, Blue Nile, Katchaturian, Sibelius, Arvo Parth, Prokofjev, Shostakovitch, Eric Satie, Penderecki, Moussorgsky, Beethoven, Thomas Dolby, Henry Purcell, Lucia Micarelli, Gary Husband, Earth Wind & Fire (Maurice White), Paco de Lucia & Carlos Benavente, Steve Reich, Univers Zero, John Adams, Kiss, Meat Loaf, Gino Vannelli, Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice (JC Superstar the Film soundtrack: Andre Previn, Carl Anderson, Ted Neely), Carl Anderson with Zawinul, the soundtrack of The Wickerman by Paul Giovanni (1973), Commodores, Doobie Brothers, Cecilia le Poer Power, Ravi Shankar, Mari Boine Persen, Steely Dan, Johnny Guitar Watson, Bob Marley, Madness, the Specials, Björk, Defunkt, George Clinton, Fenton Robinson and Hound Dog Taylor, the tunes of The Persuaders and I Claudius...
Sounds Like
Stormvogel's Alter Ego Jazz Barock Consort itself of course, with a touch of Magma, Mahavishnu, Coltrane and Varese.
The tracks above are played by Stormvogels Alter Ego, Stormvogel (synthesizers, rhodes), Onno Witte (drums) and Marco van Os (e-bass). The first track is called Preambulum, Ouverture of the Drakenburger Concerto's, recorded in 2002. Its new function is the opening tune of Festival de Muzen. The second and third track are movements called 'Matter of Time', extracts from the 'Synergie' project. The last track is called 'Melena', a unisono break taken from the Drakenburger Concerto's played by Alter Ego in 1999: Stormvogel (synthesizers, rhodes), Karsten van Straten (drums), Marco van Os (e-bas), Thijs van Otterloo (sax), Semmy Prinsen (sax) and Remko Smit Stalenhoef (sax).
Stormvogel began his mission as a man of letters, encouraged by his father C.M.A. Bakker and his teacher at the time Ted Vierhout, both writers and storytellers of the highest standards. Inspired by writers as W.F.Hermans, Jan Wolkers, Willem Elsschot, Simon Carmiggelt, Heinrich Böll, Herman Hesse, Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche, his style was a remarkable mixture of prose, poetry and philosophy, combining elements of 'magical realism', 'psychological thriller' and 'dramatic arts'. He began during his schooldays with the distribution of handmade, illustrated manuscripts among his family, friends and fellow students. Making these works the subject of his literary exames, the young writer was brought under notice of national media. Through appearances on national television and articles in newspapers, Stormvogel was soon recognized by the influential author/publisher K.L.Poll († R.I.P.), who let him publish a fragment of his first book in 'Hollands Maandblad', a magazine on the subject of literature and art. During his study jazzpiano at the Conservatory of Hilversum/Amsterdam, (with pianist Karel Boehlee), Stormvogel already published his first novelle ’Bloed, Wild Vlees & Verboden Vrucht’ at Rothschild & Bach, Uitgevers te Amsterdam (1990), a new, self-willed and artistic publishing-firm, led by famous Dutch avantgarde theatre director Jan Ritsema. Immediately Stormvogel's debutroman was chosen as book of the month and debut of the year, and the writer himself as "the crown-prince of the Dutch bookguild" by the wellknown bookcritic Jaap Goedegebuuren in prominent Dutch magazines 'HP/De Tijd' and 'Mekka'. Famous Dutch theatre director GJ Rijnders was eager to enrich the repertoire of Toneelgroep Amsterdam with this new work. One year after, the novelle was followed by a roman with the title 'Naar de Alhaat' (1991), an occult-folklorological work containing 666 pages, which for yet unreveiled reasons was restrained from publishing on the road to the Central Bookhouse. Freed from the chains of literature, Stormvogel was busy as a musician (keyboards, hurdygurdy), artist, as well as a student on the subject of theosophy and occult history.
His theosophical, historical and folklorological knowledge, combined with his ideas about electronic and analog devices, along with his taste for jazz, barok, minimal music, sufi, celtic and progressive rock, inspired Stormvogel to compose his own kind of music, which he called "jazzbarock". Jazz for the amount of improvisation, barock mainly for the ostinate basslines and rock as a warning, there are heavy drums involved. (Besides: All three names were primarely used to mock a style, but later for honour's sake.) The result was a serial of "Drakenburger Concerto's", an emerging musical suite with historical context, named after a legendary house of knights in the region. Using both accoustic and electronic instruments, improvised and arranged techniques, oddmeter playing, ostinate basslines, avantgarde elements, ambient soundscapes and mystical atmospheres, the music of Stormvogel is beyond compare and hard to classify. However, being influenced by progressive rock, gothic, freejazz, beebop, avantgarde, minimal music, musique concrete, sufi, raga, pansori, schlager and celtic folklore, it is said Stormvogels jazzbarock will be loved most -and understood best- by the jazz-winged fans of Zeuhl music.
After composing the first tracks, and sevral rehearsels in Amsterdam with Balvers & Van Straten, Stormvogel finally formed a consortium of musicians with different background like classical, jazz, rock and worldmusic, that could perform in different line-ups. Headquarters were in artists centre Artishock Soest. In fact the group it was an organic meltdown from two former groups led by Stormvogel, the progressive rockensemble Orcustra and the middle-evil rockgroup Barditus. On occasion this ensemble is and was accompanied by performing artists, dancers, painters, poets, swordfighters and even scientists and archeologists, which had already participated in Stormvogel's historical synergetic mysteryplays in the years before, like "Eemsaga", a midsummernight open air mysteryplay, about the middle-evil history and legends of the region Eemland, the central part of the lowlands where Stormvogel was born. In this project Stormvogel combined old and new music with folklore and history, art, poetry and dance, apparently under the influence of old legends, occult philosophy, masonic St John rithes and Indo-Germanic paganism. On his side were Dutch artist like Klaas Kloosterhuis (a singing blacksmith) and Leanne Lawalata (sjamanic arts), as well as Oscar Prinsen (conceptual arts). Most important part was played by the German Tanzgruppe 'Faut Pas', with Dagmar Holsträter & Sri Mintarti Anouk Soutardjo. Based in Bochum/Essen, this group did several shows in the Netherlands and Germany with Stormvogel, composing synphonic suites inspired by choreography of Dagmar Holsträter. The contribution of these creative minds, gathered in "The Zoyster Kluft", contibruted to the status of Stormvogel's Alter Ego being more of a spiritual-mystical knighthood, than just another bunch of virtuose instrumentalists. Leading role in this realm of JazzBarock theatre was played by Stormvogel himself on rhodespiano and analoge synthesizers, as well as a blind sworddancer and psychopath stage poet, exploring the boundaries and depth of the human conscience with his strange, archaic and mindrendering vocabulaire.
On behalve of these works Stormvogel was recognized in the year 2000 with the MTN Carte Blanche Utrecht, a nomination for the first 'Jur Naessens Muziek Prijs' (Amsterdam) and artist in residence in the 'Stranger than Paranoia Festival' (Tilburg). Famous Dutch jazzconductor Henk Meutgeert was eager to enrich the repertoire of his Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw with some of the Drakenburger movements. Although there were several recordings made, live on stage as well in studio, no official releases were done. Concerts were given untill 2002, on several occasions and locations in the Netherlands, from jazzclubs and festivals to castles and openair-theatres. Medio 2002 Stormvogel suddenly withdraw his Alter Ego Jazzbarock Consort from the public domain.
During the break Stormvogel was busy as publicist, editor, journalist, designer, teacher, cultural consultant, story-teller, castle-host, and composer, as well as a student on the subjects of cultural science and history (university) and music theory (conservatory). Stormvogel also restarted his activities on the field of jazzpiano, mainly in the Dutch region Gooi & Eemland, playing in several styles, - from mainstream to avantgarde, from swing, bebop and cool, to freejazz and an open (ECM like) style. As a leader he performs with his trio in different line ups, inviting special guests from the topscene of Dutch Jazz, like Benjamin Herman, Loet van der Lee, Eef Albers, Leo Janssen, Tineke Postma, Ben van den Dungen and Hans Dulfer. He is also a leading member of Ottomania Jazz Quartet (with tenorist Semmy Prinsen), SaraLee Vos Combo, Liberales (with tenorist Peter Lieberom), and jazzgroups with Dutch jazzmusketeers Alexander Beets and Lodewijk Bouwens, and with his harem of upcoming Dutch jazzdiva's, The Ladybirds: Eline, Anne Chris, Saskia Groenenberg, Tamara Maria, SaraLee Vos and Gaby Kaihatu. As a stage programmer Stormvogel is known for presenting unknown young talent, as well as paying tribute to old masters. His initiatives brought him some recognition, leading to the first Amer Award in 2005, presented to him by journalist Hans Mantel.
Meanwhile, Stormvogel took up jazzbarock again, playing Fender Rhodes and analoge synthesizers in groups led by Onno Witte (Wildcard, 2004), Jeroen Pek (Pitch White Storm, 2006) and Lucas Van Merwijk (Music Machine, 2008). On occasion he performes as a lector on the subject of analoge synthesizers and electronic music as well. After his crossover-project Festival de Muzen 2006, where Stormvogel presented a bunch of the finest Dutch artists on the field of Jazz, Poetry & Art (www.festival-demuzen.nl), the selfwilled artist restored a more accoustic jazz & improvisation related Alter Ego JazzBarock Consort, with Onno Witte (drums), Thomas Winther Andersen (double bass), Thijs van Otterloo (sax) and international revelation of the year 2006 Tineke Postma (sax). With the project "Synergy" the dutch homo universalis looks for interactive crossovers with dance (Vraja Sundari Keilman), art (Mijpe) and VJ art (Zanne), young upcoming artists from the Netherlands, and additional artists like Arjen de Graaff (violins) and Jeroen Pek (flutes). Supported by SJU foundation De Vijfde Verdieping (www.devijfdeverdieping.nl), the group was able to do its first concerts, well recieved by press and audience. Following up their spiritual knit of hearts, Stormvogel and Vraja Sundari decided to do more concerted actions, leading to the Festival de Muzen 2007 with Samadhi Dance Company, Alter Ego Jazzbarock Consort and young urban artists Rasarani & Krishna.
Here is a snapshot from the concert of Alter Ego with Rasa & Krishna, at the theatre Speeldoos in Baarn, 7th of june, 2007. It is my favourite tune of all times, the old and powerful 'Love Mantra', arranged for this occasion by Krishna and Stormvogel. The beautiful dance is ofcourse from the talented Vraja Sundari Keilman (Samadhi).
Hi friends!!! :))) Our new maxi-single "Party Stess" is on iTunes now!!! Check it on our profile, if you have a brave heart! :))) Greets from Bulgaria!
Hey Storm VP!! We moeten het nog even hebben over een heleboel dingen.. Wanneer ik jou piano les ga geven onder andere hehe.. Wanneer we even gaan kijken voor die solo gig op 't Festival en misschien andere dingetjes! en we moeten ook gewoon eens met synths gaan kloten enzo vind ik!
