Bassist Joris Teepe is one of the few Dutch jazz musicians who has succeeded in making his home in America. He always has a busy schedule and regularly gets calls from jazz greats like Branford Marsalis, trumpeter Randy Brecker and guitarist Mike Stern. Still the musician likes to come back to Holland. Two years ago he formed an ensemble recruited from the participants of a unique jazz programme that Teepe introduced to the Noord-Nederlands Conservatory in his function of head of the Jazz Department. Weekly, by rotation, one of the band members from New York, flies to Groningen in order to teach there for a week. The other band members/teachers are: Don Braden (saxophone), Ralph Peterson (drums), Brian Lynch (trumpet), Dena DeRose (vocals), Conrad Herwig (trombone – not present at the festival), David Berkman (piano) and Ron Jackson (guitar). Recently they released the CD Jazz in, Jazz Out. Teepe has been nominated for the Bird Award ‘Artist Deserving Wider Recognition 2004’.
