Chiel Meijering - Two Men and a Lady

Sympathetic, that’s how I would label my countryman Chiel Meijering’s compositions. Even when containing an occasional sonic experiment with tapes, the man’s music remains highly accessible.
As for those modern experiments, I still wonder if the buzzing airplane I hear here and there is a conscious avant-gardistic addition or just the bad luck of the machine accidentally flying over during a recording. It is hard to tell which.

What’s not hard to tell, the first two tracks (Are You Afraid of the Dark I & II) stand out as the kind of rhythmic flamenco with which the legendary trio De Lucia, DiMeola and McLaughlin dazzled the world – although, admittedly, no trio can hope to reach the same level of virtuosity as displayed on Friday Night in San Francisco. Yet, they’re good enough, the Amsterdam Trio; they know what to do with the music Meijering composed especially for them. The flamenco style is bound to please.

Here are some friendly tunes which do not require too much of an effort in order to be appreciated. I was in doubt where to place the album (jazz, folk, world, classical, avant-garde) but finally decided for classical. After all, that’s the main bulk of former rockband member Meijering’s work; he’s generally considered a composer of classical music. Now I hope he’ll never read this little review….Meijering has mixed feelings about being distinguished with the attributive “classical”.

The Amsterdam Trio are:

Johan Dorrestein, guitar
Olga Franssen, guitar
Helenus de Rijke, guitar
(on tracks 5,7,9: Esther Apituley, viola. Tapes by Floris van Manen)

tracks

01. Are you Afraid of the Dark? p. I
02. Are you Afraid of the Dark? p. II
03. Two Men and a Lady
04. No Rhyme No Reason p. I
05. No Rhyme No Reason p. II
06. Miss Garcia Doesn't Ring Anymore
07. Another Day Dies on a Gull's Cry
08. The Insects are Coming
09. No Rhyme No Reason p. III