John F. Klaver - Organic & Sustainable Sessions Vol.1 (2019)

Guitarist John F. Klaver is one of the newer stars in the Dutch blues (rock) company. Finger-fast, flowing solos on the semi-acoustic electric guitar are his trademark. In 2011 he won the Dutch Blues Challenge with his band and in 2015 the Blues Award for best blues guitarist in the Netherlands. The John F. Klaver Band also accompanied blues (rock) greats such as Johnny Winter, Dana Fuchs and Matt Schofield. The Klaver from Boxmeer started playing the guitar at the age of eleven, inspired by Gary Moore, Robben Ford and Jimi Hendrix, and later took music theory lessons at the University of the Pacific in the US. He then went to the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he was taught by Jesse van Ruller, Martijn van Iterson and Eef Albers. Today he is a professional musician and music teacher. For this album he could appeal to a good number of great professional musicians from the blues and jazz scene. The acclaimed British guitarist-singer Ian Siegal cooperates with Little By Little, best known in the version of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi. Saxophonist Ephraim Trujillo is known from, among others, The Ploctones (by Anton Goudsmit).
 On this indeed warm and organic sounding album, especially Klaver himself sings and he does great. Furthermore, with his smooth guitar playing he shows why he won all those prizes. In Move On Up, the band sticks to the version such as the fantastic Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio that previously brought. The Prince by Larry Carlton is nicely funky and rhythmic and has a complicated structure. That is how we arrived at the makke of this album; own work here lacks a little of its own face. Klaver and the other musicians are great, the recording quality is excellent, but there is not much color outside the lines. Perhaps that is not their ambition and the blues audience may not be bothered by it either.