Happy Camp by Available Jelly

Michael Moore - alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet
Tobias Delius - tenor saxophone
Eric Boeren - cornet, melodica
Wolter Wierbos - trombone
Ernst Glerum - bass
Michael Vatcher - drums, percussion

"Available Jelly is a Dutch group that plays a heady blend of originals, little heard Ellington, and some African songs, the instrumentation almost giving it the feel of traditional jazz (by which I intend the kind that developed around the time of the first world war). Eric Boeren's cornet, Wolter Wierbos's brash and vocal trombone, and Michael Moore's clarinet and alto can impart the flavour of a New Orleans front line, while tenor saxophonist Toby Delius can summon the breathy bluster of Hawkins and Webster. While its eclecticism is bound to suggest Dutch ensembles led by Misha Mengelberg and Willem Breuker, Available Jelly has a character of it's own, a raw vitality that seeps into the most precise ensemble. It's music that's often contrapuntal within the ghost of tonality and it jumps with spectacular life in the joyous collisions that arise between its written parts and its improvising styles. Ernst Glerum on bass and Michael Vatcher on drums drive and bounce it along with the effervescence of a (global) village band."

Coda, January/February 1998

Michael Moore (1954, Eureka, California, USA) is a saxophone & clarinet player active primarily in Europe and North America playing creative jazz and improvised musics. He leads his own ensembles, works with the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra and many others, collaborates with dancers, teaches music at the Conservatory of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and produces recordings.

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