Baseline - Déjà Vu (2021)

In 1994 I decided to create my own group. I had written many tunes over the years, and felt a need to express myself as a band leader, playing my music, having the bass, that beautiful expressive instrument, stand more in the front. I decided to rekindle the connection with John Abercrombie and asked drummer Joe LaBarbera to join the trio. Baseline was born, but in this shape proved to be too difficult to maintain.

The day of the recording of a new Baseline album came, and I had no idea..... The band with John Abercrombie and Joe LaBarbera had been magnificent. Strong individual mature players, serving the music, but also strong in their own colour. I couldn’t just go on like that. This was a different band altogether. Ed, who I have known for ten years, is becoming this strong melodic player that finds his own way between all stylistic influences. There is Jazz, there is Fusion, there is some Brazil ..... Hans and I go back to the days of Jack van Poll, those days where Jack would light a place with his sheer sense of swing. Those were the days, some 15 years ago. But Hans and I kept playing and loving to play together. We are a tandem now in the bands of Philip Catherine, Enrico Pieranunzi, Toots Thielemans, Bert van den Brink and some other leaders on a more irregular basis.

Once in the studio, an excerpt of one of the old vinyl records I grew up with was put on tape and served thus as a inspirational point of departure, giving us a tempo, a mood, sometimes a contrast. It changed the atmosphere.

E.g.: For the title-song “Déjà Vu” I looped that great guitar groove of the intro with the same name by David Crosby on the wonderful album by Crosby-Stills- Nash&Young and we used this underneath the whole tune, switching grooves from 12/8 to a 3/4.
(adapted from the liner notes by Hein van de Geyn)