Last year, saxophonist Benjamin Herman celebrated his fiftieth birthday by releasing several albums. One of them was Bughouse. Herman has never made a secret of the fact that he has an affinity for punk. At the end of the 1970s, when he started out as a young saxophonist, he found the jazz played on the radio to be quite simply boring. He preferred to listen to punk bands. Herman found his inspiration for Bughouse in the music of the late British sax player Xero Slingsby, who combined free jazz with punk. In the 1980s, Slingsby lived in Amsterdam where he busked regularly. Another influence was the style and swagger of John Lurie. Herman had been planning to make a punk-jazz record for a long while but it took time to find the right musicians. He found the successful combination in guitarist Reinier Baas, bassist Peter Peskens, and drummer Olav van den Berg.
