With Rotterdam, Europe's largest port and Amsterdam, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, the music scene in The Netherlands has always been adventurous, a polygot stew that draws influences from allover the world. It's a place where the West African guitar-slingers rub shoulders with Middle Eastern hip-hoppers, Surinamese drummers and Dutch jazzmen, and its diversity was the inspiration for flutist Mark Alban Lotz and his many genre-binding projects.
As the son of a journalist, Lotz grew up traveling the world, with extended stays in Thailand and Uganda. This, combined with long term exposure to his father's extensive jazz collection (and some Frank Zappa thrown in for a good measure), opened Lotz's ears wide. At the age of 17 he taught himself the flute and soon had the privilege of studying with Germany's Michael Heupel. From there he went on to study both classical and jazz flute in Holland at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Amsterdam and the Conservatory of Hilversum. But his ears always led him somewhere else.
"Being curious, and surrounded by all sorts of musics I can not help being a world jazz artist", says Lotz. "I try to build a bridge between bebop jazz and contemporary classical music, often crossing borders with musics of other cultures."
The peripatetic Lotz has built this bridge with no less than three working bands, and each band showcases a different aspect of his musical evolution. His quartet (sometimes quintet) Lotz Of Music ranges fa and wide, with five albums that encompass everything from mainstream jazz to Cuban vocalists to what Lotz describes as "a PVC contra bass flute in dialogue with Pygmies."
With his band Shango's Dance, Lotz further explored his love for Afro-Cuban music with the album Cuban Fishes Make Good Dishes (Random Chance Records). Says Lotz: "Our Cuban adventure started as a coincidence. Our drummer at that time was attending Batá classes with Javier Campos Martinez while we were recording our second CD. Of course we wanted to record with this fantastic musician, so within two weeks we recorded instrumental versions of Orisha songs. This led to concerts and an invitation to perform at the Percuba Festival in Havana."
Then there's the Global Village Orchestra, a 10-piece band that draws on the divergent musical traditions of it's member's eight nationalities (Turkish, German, Senegalese, Dutch, Yugoslavian, Moroccan, Persian and Uigur) to conoct a musical mélange where modal scales meet jazz improvisation and African funk.
"I do believe that folkloric music always is strong music," explains this errant jazzman. "It's developed and proven itself over the centuries and is connected to religion, culture and history. I guess that no bad beat or melody will survive history. I hope!"
- Tom Pryor