Jan Dumée

Jan Dumée (born April 6, 1965) is a Dutch rock/jazz guitar player, composer and record producer.

Biography

Jan Dumée (born 6 April 1965 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands) grew up in an environment having had the chance to listen all kinds of music. From the exciting sounds of Led Zeppelin, the orchestral sounds of Rachmaninoff, the jazz solos of Wes Montgomery, the universal Brazilian sounds of Hermeto Pascoal and so on...., it all became a consistent part in his musical education, inspiration and taste. Jan’s strength in music is being blessed to play and compose several music styles such as rock, jazz, fusion, world music, classic, music for film etc. Jan also uses to play piano, organ, drums, bass and percussion. Nowadays Jan is recognized as a very versatile guitar player and composer with an own signature.

The music of Jan Dumée is described in the reviews as 'very creative', 'non-conformist in approach', 'ear-tickling' and 'knowing no bounds'. In an extraordinary way he showed this with his O Septeto Plus project with musicians from Brazil, Senegal, Argentina, Holland and Croatia. With this ensemble he recorded the album 'Rodinha', an amount of selfwilling compositions based in Brazilian music and blended with other styles such as jazz, African-, classic-, and Indian- music. ‘Rodinha’ was recognized in 1998 as one of the best Dutch world music CDs by the press, the foundation Conamus and Radio Holland (world broadcast). Since 1991 he has regular paid visits to Brazil to do what is called 'work in the field', studying Brazilian music and culture. Jan developed playing Brazilian percussion (from “repenique” to the little triangle), which helped him become a versatile composer in different Brazilian music styles. In 1999 he became for one special occasion musical 'director' of the 'Dutch' (with mostly Brazilians) samba school 'Casa Holanda-Brasil'.

Since the end of 2001 until April 2006 Jan became internationally known due to his job as guitar player/composer of Dutch' foremost prog/jazz-rock group of all times: Focus. Already since a boy of 15 years old he frequented the house of one of Focus founders: Thijs van Leer (flute, Hammond organ, piano, voice). The music of Van Leer and Focus (and with them the ‘Dutch School’ of the seventies Rogier van Otterloo and the masterfully phrasing of melodies by guitargiant : Jan Akkerman) became an important part from the first hand for his musical inspiration and formation. He recorded with Focus the albums 'Focus 8' and 'Live in South America' and the DVD/CD 'Live in America'.

During his time with Focus, Dumée recorded in Rio de Janeiro in 2003 his solo album 'Rio on the Rocks' (released in 2005 by the Rocks Symphony label): a blend of (prog)rock, jazz, Brazilian and classical music with renowned musicians such as: Xande Figueiredo (drums), Marcos Suzano (pecussion), Chico Batera (drums), Luis Alves (bass), Arthur Maia (bass), and many others.

Nowadays Dumée is leading together with ex-Uriah Heep/Lucifer's Friend singer John Lawton a new multinational rock band called On The Rocks, officially known as OTR. Together (again) with musicians from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, they recorded their first CD (in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, The Netherlands), which will be released in spring 2008. Also a live DVD is planned to be recorded in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in 2008.

Furthermore Jan has his other musical ideals as he shows with 'The Cubrabop Quintet' (Brazilian/Cuban/jazz, with musicians from Holland, France and Germany), and the 'Jan Dumée Group' (jazz, Brazilian music with some of the finest musicians from Rio de Janeiro) and will do co-projects with different international musicians/artists.

Discography

olo albums

*"Rio On The Rocks" (2005)

With On The Rocks

*"Mamonama" (2008)

With Focus

*"Focus 8" (2002)
*"Live in the USA" (CD/DVD, 2003)
*"Live in South America" (2004)

With O Septeto Plus

*"A Rodinha" (1998)

External links

* [http://www.jandumee.com/ Jan Dumée official website]
* [http://myspace.com/jandumee MySpace page 1]
* [http://myspace.com/composerjandumee MySpace page 2]
* [http://www.otr-band.co.uk/ On The Rocks official website]
* [http://www.focustheband.com/ Focus official website]