Alto saxophonist and composer Ben van Gelder (1988) is regarded as a super talent in both national and international circles. As a teenager, he already won major prizes, including the Princess Christina Competition, the Stan Getz/Clifford Brown Fellowship, and the Deloitte Jazz Award. At seventeen, he moved to New York, where he lived for nearly ten years and worked with world-class musicians such as Mark Turner, Joe Sanders, and Ambrose Akinmusire. There, he developed a recognizable style as a soloist and composer, partly nurtured by his studies in art history; visual art, stories, and objects often form a framework for the music he writes. With his quintet, he has made three highly acclaimed albums. His album, Manifold (2023), recorded with an octet lineup, explores the versatility of the church organ and was hailed by The New York Times as a sensational release.
For North Sea Jazz, Van Gelder presents The Whole Wide World Is Round, a musical ode to the festival's fiftieth anniversary and to the people who have shaped and sustained jazz. The central theme is memory. Van Gelder has a personal connection to the festival: his father had a booth there for years with his record store Swingmaster, and his mother was so moved by Abbey Lincoln's performance in 1981 that she asked for a photo at the booth and met Van Gelder senior there – which indirectly led to the existence of their son, Ben.
It is therefore only natural that Lincoln forms the heart of this new project. Her poetic lyrics about ancestry, time, and identity inspired Van Gelder's compositions, visually translated by Tony Roe and complemented by archival photos of Van Gelder's father. The lineup consists of musicians who are personally and musically dear to him: Nelson Veras (guitar), Martin Nevin (double bass), Craig Weinrib (drums), and Peter Schlamb (vibraphone), with his brother Gideon van Gelder as a special guest on piano.
