Why a trumpet is liberating

Martin Bril, 06-02-2009 10:12 

Jazz trumpeter Eric Vloeimans reconciles you to life. 
Summersault is an acrobatic leap, a handstand taken one step further, a flip in a forward direction. The kind of thing that girls get very good at a certain age. There isn’t a beach or sunny meadow where you don’t see them flying through the air with the greatest of ease. Summersault is also the title of a record by Eric Vloeimans. He is a Dutch jazz trumpet player. To be quite honest, I’d never heard of him. 

I’m not really the trumpet type; I never was. These things happen. There are also people who don’t like vibraphones or harpsichords. I’m also a member of that group. There are even trombone haters. But I’m certainly not affiliated to that particular club. My hatred of trumpets was caused by the Brouwer Brothers, a Dutch oompa trumpet duo. And the military character of the instrument doesn’t appeal to me either. On the other hand, a beautiful Last Post in the right place... Anyway.
Summersault is an old record from 2006. That makes no difference to me. Music is as young and fresh as the moment when you first hear it. Hank Williams had been dead for 30 years when I first heard him and thought he was amazing. To my ears, he sounded as new and timeless as timeless and new can sound. And the same applies to Vloeimans’ record, which is packaged in a beautiful, Dutch beach scene; two children on an endless beach, serene breakers. Zeeland, Ijmuiden. 

The first song on the record is called Morimond. It is apt for any funeral. While you listen to the hesitant sounds, you can see the trumpeter stooping over his instrument searching for relevant notes. It’s a song like a breath, a perfectly stylised breath, the breath of life and expectation, but also filled with melancholy and farewell. And yet it’s playful too. 

On quickly to the title track, which is suddenly and unexpectedly cheerful, sunny and swinging, but not obtrusive. Lyrical and musical acrobatics, modestly showing off Vloeimans’ ability. I don’t even know whether you should call it jazz. 
It seems like music made by intelligent people with a penchant for beauty (the first costly duty of everyone with artistic talent) while it doesn’t want to become lost in earnest (the second duty of great talent). It is music in which the sound of the trumpet does not blare in a military or bebop way and is not posing cool and collected as customary ever since Miles Davis. The trumpet of Vloeimans is a liberated trumpet. 

While the record has several melancholy moments (Desberado, FF Dimme Cowboy), it is nevertheless a summery record. To pull it even better: the music of a pleasant summer day. Just left the beach, fried fish on a plastic plate, children glowing sun burnt in the car, windows open, returning along the meandering road from Bloemendaal to Haarlem, then left turn along the old canal path via Halfweg back home to Amsterdam. 

Music for one last glass of wine in the garden, the gentle tinkling of cutlery on the other side of the hedge, a single laugh elsewhere in the gardens, the moon rising, the glow you still feel from the whole day in the heat, the sand between your toes, the brackish salt in your wife’s hair as your nose sniffs it in passing. Then under the shower together and the rest. In the meantime, Eric blows Mon Petit Prince, the tranquil piano is slowly getting angry and plucked guitars drive his breath through the miraculous copper of his instrument. Music filled with sweet memories and minor surprises to look forward to; flips, handstands and somersaults.