Michael Moore Fragile Quartet
Michael Moore – alto saxophone and clarinet
Harmen Fraanje – piano
Clemens van der Feen – double bass
Gerry Hemingway – drums
“Michael Moore is unsurpassed in playing super sweet melodies that hit you hard… disarming, but never sentimental.”
de Volkskrant
“Contemporary improvised music at it’s best, with an intelligent and emotional musicality. A wonderful balance between written composition and free passages, tradition and modernity, emotion and abstraction.”
Jazzenzo
BIOGRAPHY
Alto saxophonist and clarinettist Michael Moore is internationally renowned for his deep musical fantasy and beautiful tone. He’s been a key figure in the Amsterdam impro scene for more than 30 years, playing, composing and arranging for ICP Orchestra and Available Jelly, among others. For his own quartet he writes clear, controlled music with jazz and classical undertones. Moore performed and collaborated with Joey Baron, Misha Mengelberg, Lee Konitz, Dave Douglas, Han Bennink, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Feldman. In 1986 he received the Dutch jazz award, the Boy Edgar Prijs. In ’97 Trio Clusone was voted #1 acoustic group (Talent Deserving Wider Recognition) in Down Beat’s Critics Poll; in 2000 – 2002 Moore was voted #1 clarinetist in the same poll. He was also voted winner of the Bird Award from the Northsea Jazz Fest in 2000.
REVIEWS
Review of Easter Sunday
“Michael Moore composed all but one of the songs here, with one cover of the standard “It Might as Well be Spring”. “Cool, Simmering” opens and it has an apt title since Mr. Moore’s cascading alto sax sounds like Lee Konitz or Paul Desmond at their coolest. His tone is stunning, the tune is lovely, calm and exquisitely sublime. The tempo and intensity slowly build throughout this piece until it drifts into the clouds and simmers. Overall most of these songs have mellow, spacious sound. Quietly adventurous without breaking a sweat. Pianist Harmen Fraanje plays in a haunting, warm and mostly melodic way, each of his solos are superb with never a wasted note. The tempo and temperature increases somewhat on “Evguth” which is adventurous in its own odd way. One of the more distinctive traits about Michael’s music is that he has a sly way of using less notes or spaciousness while keeping the essence of the song intact. Playing a fragment of the entire melody or line and letting the listener fill in the rest. His music seems to breathe and leaves us in magical state of mostly subdued grace.”
Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
