Han Bennink Archieven - A S T R E S D'OR

10″
Original Artwork by Han Bennink
Numbered & signed edition of 25 ex.
d’or046
SOLD

In collaboration with Astres d’Or, Han Bennink has made an edition of 10″ vinyls, 25 copies.
The leitmotiv is the jazz standard the Tiger Rag of which several jazz musicians claim the copyrights, so it is not known who the actual author is.
Most likely it is an old New Orleans traditional.
The Tiger Rag has been performed and recorded through a role in the pianola from the Le Brocope theater in Oldeberkoop, Friesland. The role is played by Ferrante and Teicher as stated on it. The big question is whether or not musicians with these names were specially sought to give the title extra strength.
Han did that for the recording by improvisingly adding all kinds of percussive elements and to continue with that even on the other side of the 10″.

In 1967 the first album was released on the ICP label of the New Acoustic Swing Duo, consisting of Han Bennink and Willem Breuker. To save costs Han made all covers of the first and second edition, a total of 3000 pieces, by hand.
Costs NLG 10.00 + NLG 1.00 shipping costs.
Now, 53 years later, it is a difficult to obtain and precious collector’s item in which music and visual art are so intertwined.
Han subsequently fitted almost all ICP covers, and many others, with a front, but no longer by hand of course. A booklet of this was published in 2008 by Uitgeverij Huis Clos in an edition of 750 copies that was sold out in no time. In 2009 a reprint was released with a new title page and a number of covers added. 500 pieces numbered and signed. Also sold out immediately.
This was released again in 2015 with appendix 2009-2014.

When Raymond Dijkstra approached Han with the request to make a series in which music and image come together, he did not have to think long about it.
Fantastic to make another LP, but then a small one, after 53 years, in a hand-cut edition of 25 pieces and to design it all by yourself.

The fact that the recordings made in 1967 in the Netherlands with Sonny Rollins are also released this year is a wonderful combination of circumstances and makes the circle even more beautiful.

Tiger Rag by Louis Armstrong was the first record Han Bennink received from his father…

Han Bennink

Born in 1942 in Zaandam as the son of Anna Melk and Rein Bennink. Brother Peter followed in 1945. Moved to Hilversum in 1954, where Rein got a permanent job at broadcasting as a percussionist with the Zaaiers and the Cosmopolitain Orchestra. Anna became politically active there as a municipal councilor for the PSP.

At the age of five, Han started drumming on a kitchen chair. His father later gave him better material and converted the attic as a play area and studio for him. When he got tired of playing drums he started drawing and painting and vice versa. Always busy. He was also skilled in sailing and hockey.

He made his first recording with his father on clarinet in the AVRO studio, released on a 78 rpm record, edition 1 piece. He also played with his father wherever the opportunity arose, even at the army base of La Coutine in France, while he managed to escape military service with a hefty S5 (Note Astres d’Or: S5 is a health classification for the Dutch army (S5 means that one has achieved the lowest score on mental stability.)).

He soon went his own way as a drummer, played with the Pim Jacobs Trio, with Johnny Griffin and started the collaboration with Willem Breuker and Misha Mengelberg, from which the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) was created in 1967, with which Han still plays at home and abroad. abroad. Han played with Wes Montgomery, Eric Dolphy, Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, Peter Brötzman, André van Duin, Percy Sledge, Dexter Gordon, Rita Corita, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Anneke Grönlo, Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Pat Metheny, Piet Noordijk, Ray Anderson, Terrie Ex, Louis van Dijk, Uri Caine and many others.

At the same time Han studied at the Kunstnijverheidsschool in Amsterdam, the current Rietveld Academy, where he graduated cum laude as a graphic artist in 1964. At the graduation ceremony, director Dirk Vis declared Han the best drummer among graphic artists and the best graphic artist among drummers. That statement does not seem to have lost its relevance.
Han makes objects, assemblages and collages from mostly found objects. The only painter’s material Han uses is paper, pens, pencils, stamps, ink and watercolor for his drawings and arrangements.
Han designs the sleeves for LPs and CDs for his recordings. The original copies of the first ICP LP have since become valuable collector’s items.
Han has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Het Goois Museum in Hilversum, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Design Museum in London, Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Museum Bevédère in Oranjewoud and Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen.

Han designed various trophies for Sena, the rights organization for performing artists: in 2017 the ‘Gouden Slifje’ trophy for the young most promising jazz drummer of the year, ‘De Gouden Notenkraker’ in 2018 for leading musicians or ensembles and the ‘Humble Hero Award’ 2019 and 2020 for the often invisible session musician who has left his mark.

Han himself won the Wessel Ilcken prize, predecessor of the Boy Edgar prize, the European Jazz Prize, Kunstpreis der Stadt Berlin, Bird Award Norths Sea Jazz Festival, Lifetime Achievement Award Cairo Jazz Festival, the Skoda Jazz Award Jazz Ahead Bremen and an Edison for the ICP Complete Boxed Catalog.

Two documentaries have been made about Han, “The Bearded” by Trino Flothuis and “Hazard Time” by Jelly Dekker. Erik van den Berg wrote his biography ‘De Wereld als Trommel’ and Irma Boom designed the book about and with his visual art ‘HANBENnInK’.

Besides the ICP orchestra, Han is part of the duo with clarinetist Joris Roelofs, the duo with pianist Guus Janssen, the ICP trio with Wolter Wierbos and Ernst Glerum, The Quartet.NL with Peter Beets, Ernst Glerum and Benjamin Herman, has his own Han Bennink Trio with pianist Simon Toldam and clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst and now plays with the third generation of jazz musicians.

Han still combines music and visual art. During the periods when he is free from music and does not have to go out, new ideas are always sprouting and assemblages are put together and new covers are designed.

(All text above Annemiek Ebbink)