This year Messrs. Baars and Buis have extended their duo with a tuba lady from Ghent. Berlinde Deman has been the right wing back of the Belgian orchestra Flat Earth Society for years. We now get a chance to meet her up close and personal. For we’re not counting her occasional solo spots in the FES. With Baars and Buis, the tuba player steps into a comfortably warm bath with two of the nimblest improvisers from the Amsterdam Serie A. We’re expecting no less than a refreshing concert.

Since his initiation, Tobias Delius, who got soaked during an unstable canoe trip in the Reitdiep thirty years ago, the saxophonist has become the most frequently heard musician in ZJFT history. For this edition, he proposed his duo with pianist Michiel Scheen, a combination that was already featured at the 2014 ZJFT. Usually the Berlin based saxophonist likes to perform in his own outfits (Delius 4tet or Booklet) without a chordal instrument. But with Michiel Scheen at the piano he feels completely at home.

Han Bennink, the Godfather of Dutch improv, has turned 80 this year. And we’re going to celebrate this with a quintet, assembled specially for the ZJFT, presenting some talented youngsters. Three of them already cycled through jazz cycling tour country before: Joris Roelofs, Harald Austbø and Timothy Banchet are not unknown around these parts. Rotterdam guitarist Jelle Roozenburg is a new face, however. The troops are well and truly drilled by Mr. Jubilee himself, Han Bennink.

Last year, the American Dutchmen Michael Moore and Paul Berner released their album Amulet on the Ramboy label, featuring intimate versions of American Songbook material. Both of them are well-versed in successful reconstructions. Before, the clarinettist and the bassist touched upon the roots of country music in the Paul Berner Band. Cyriel Pluimakers at the Jazzenzo blog: ‘Amulet, in its modest duo set-up, has become a marvellous production, a tribute to the power of the American song tradition.’ After a day of jazz cycling fun we can wind down in Oostum.