As North Sea Jazz proves every year, creativity transcends age, and drum legend Pierre Courbois illustrates this perfectly. At the age of 80, he founded the formation 3GEN3: a trio that brings together three generations of musicians, namely Courbois himself (born in 1940), bassist Luciën Matheeuwsen (1964), and saxophonist Jesse Schilderink (1995). As a Dutch jazz pioneer, Courbois is one of the founders of European free jazz. He has worked with icons such as Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry and Charles Mingus, and received the Boy Edgar Prize for his contribution to jazz, as well as being appointed a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. With 3GEN3, Courbois returns to compositions from his abundant oeuvre, but is at the same time breathing new life into them. The trio combines free improvisation with a playful urge for adventure, which is pretty much what this acclaimed drummer has been doing for the past sixty years.
