Two Days in Antwerp
High jazz- and Bruegel-enthusiasm levels detected
I found myself in this storied city a few days ago with my wife, and basically tripped over its jazz scene: the hotel where we were staying was literally around the corner from a jazz bar (De Muze) that hosts music every night, and had a jam session scheduled for that very evening. Then, another bar (De Vagant) that I picked out for its noteworthy selection of jenever, turned out to have a jazz show every two weeks, with the next one happening, you guessed it, that night. I asked the bartender how late it ran to see if I could come by after dinner and he told me, but also warned that as of right now, the show was fully booked. Fully booked?! Sure enough, when I came back, there was a roomful of Antwerp jazz fans, sitting raptly at their tables while a quartet played—played some pretty stretchy, original, out jazz, from what I could glean from my vantage point in the street, watching somewhat stalk-ily through a window. For the second night in a row, the pianist (the same one, the formidable Bram Weijters)1 was playing a new-looking upright that sounded in tune.
WTF Antwerp!
Belgium is also a great place to indulge your interest in Bruegel, both the elder and younger, and I was particularly excited to see the painting known as Dulle Griet at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, a museum in part constructed to showcase this painting. My enthusiasm came mostly from the fact that I co-directed a student production of Caryl Churchill’s play Top Girls about 15 years ago, in which Dull Gret shows up as a character, and, at the climax of the fabulous first act, recounts her journey to the mouth of hell, depicted in the painting. What I wasn’t ready for was a clutch of incredibly curious museum-goers, who, over a period of twenty minutes or more, never stopped inspecting, discussing, filming and photographing the painting. I captured the scene from above:
Were they part of a class that has studied the painting? Maybe! Or maybe this is just the level of enthusiasm for the arts in Antwerp? Anyway the security guard showed impressive patience. FYI, here’s the painting in full:
AND: it turns out that there was a connection to the Chicago scene: Weijters is in a long-running quartet with Chicago trumpeter Chad McCullough. Small world!