What else could Han do during the time of corona - not being permitted to perform with the ICP orchestra (or with anyone else) for a live audience. He's always playing and studying for himself, but that’s just not enough. So he made a recording with the help of Mara's pianola (situated in the lovely Frisian village of Oldeberkoop), some local songbirds, the dogs Hansje and Lou, and Han's favorite technician Marc Schots.
Han used "Tiger Rag" on the pianola, it being the first record his father gave him.
This is the result: a Musical Collage for Mara.
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Han Bennink - Snare, cymbals, cajon, horseshoe, some other kinds of percussion instruments, voice
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Pianola – Marc Schots
Jeux de Boule Balls – Han Bennink & Annemiek Ebbink
Barking – Hansje & Lou
Recording – Marc Schots
Mix & Editing – Han Bennink & Marc Schots
Cover Photo – Annemiek Ebbink
Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink was born in Zaandam near Amsterdam in 1942. His first percussion instrument was a kitchen chair. Later his father, an orchestra percussionist, supplied him with a more conventional outfit, but Han never lost his taste for coaxing sounds from unlikely objects he finds backstage at concerts. He is still very fond of playing chairs.
In Holland in the 1960s, Bennink was quickly recognized as an uncommonly versatile drummer. As a hard swinger in the tradition of his hero Kenny Clarke, he accompanied touring American jazz stars, including Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon. He is heard with Gordon on the 1969 album "Live at Amsterdam Paradiso" (on the Affinity label) and with Dolphy on 1964s "Last Date" (PolyGram). At the same time, Bennink participated in the creation of a European improvised music which began to evolve a new identity, apart from its jazz roots. With fellow Dutch pioneers, pianist Misha Mengelberg and saxophonist Willem Breuker, he founded the musicians collective Instant Composers Pool in 1967. Bennink anchored various bands led by Mengelberg or Breuker, and appeared in their comic music-theater productions.
Bennink attended art school in the 1960s, and is also a successful visual artist in several media, often constructing sculpture from found objects, which may include broken drum heads and sticks. He has designed the covers for many LPs and CDs on which he appears. Bennink is represented by Amsterdam's Galerie Espace, and has been the subject of several one-man shows, including one at the Gemeente Museum in the Hague in 1995... [more]
