Jazz is Dead, Long Live Jazz!

Roman Bockkov of ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ tunes his trombone. Jacques Malherbe

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on live music venues lent new credence to the common phrase ‘jazz is dying’, but clubs in the city of Groningen are fighting back to give the genre a new lease of life.

Café de Zolder in Groningen organizes a jazz evening every Wednesday night in order to promote the genre which was devastated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers at the bar regularly book bands of students from the city’s Prins Claus Conservatory for concerts which promote a sense of community between performers and audiences alike.

COVID Closures Hurt Jazz

Live music in the Netherlands has struggled to fully recover from the effects of COVID-mandated lockdowns. The Association of Dutch Music Venues and Festivals indicated that the number of live events was still far below pre-pandemic levels. Venue closures have been pointed to as a key factor in this slow recovery. Groningen has not been spared from this wider trend. Jazz venues in the city have dwindled, falling to only two which regularly hold events, Café de Zolder and Café de Smederij.

It is against this bleak backdrop that Ray van Astenrode (32) began organizing a regular jazz night at Café de Zolder. ‘After Corona, the whole music scene died basically. Before there used to be like four or five places to play jazz, afterwards there was only one, Café De Smederij,’ Van Astenrode tells The Glass Room. As venues for live music become scarce, organizers tend to opt for more popular forms of music, pushing jazz to the sidelines. ‘For a jazz musician, it’s hard to get by. A lot of people don’t want to listen to jazz or they don’t like it or they don’t understand it. So that’s why I organize it,’ says Van Astenrode.

The entrance of Café de Zolder. Jacques Malherbe

‘It’s Zolder. It’s Safe’

For the city’s jazz musicians, many of whom are students at the acclaimed Prins Claus Conservatory, the jazz nights offer the space for experimentation. ‘Zolder’s not like a concert hall. It’s a bar, with an underground vibe. For a lot of the musicians, it’s a safe space to have fun and explore,’ David Vinazza (26), guitarist for the band Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, tells The Glass Room, ‘It’s a place to push yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s Zolder. It’s safe.’

The safety of Zolder’s intimate surroundings extends from the stage to the audience. ‘The people here are talented, it's very inspiring. I'm a drummer myself, and when I look at the drummer here, he just gets his soul out with drums,’ says Derin (19), a Wednesday night regular, describing the sense of community he feels at the bar, ‘There’s no hatred here. Everyone is accepted.’ For Vinazza the community between the band and the audience is central to the bar’s appeal ‘As the band, you send your energy to the audience and they give it back to you,’ he says.

‘They Play Passionately’

For Van Astenrode young, lively crowds are required to preserve live jazz in the city. ‘It’s great to see so many young people interested in live music and in jazz,’ he says ‘You don’t see that all that often. People are even dancing here.’ For Derin however, it is the talent of the musicians that gets him through the door, ‘It's the most lively I've seen anywhere I went,’ he says, ‘They play passionately.’