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Tineke Postma
Transatlantic Blend
Tineke Postma insists that she is first and
foremost an improviser. “I want to be as
creative as possible while having a dialogue
with the other musicians,” says the 33-year-old
Dutch saxophonist, speaking by phone from
her home in Amsterdam. “The dialogue part is
in the improvisation.”
While working toward that goal, Postma
has honed equally proficient chops on alto and
soprano saxophones and developed considerable
prowess as an arranger and composer. She
is also an able bandleader and since 2005 has
fronted a post-bop quartet that comprises some
of Holland’s most respected jazz musicians:
pianist Marc van Roon, bassist Frans van der
Hoeven and drummer Martijn Vink. Postma’s
fifth album, The Dawn Of Light (Challenge), is
her first studio outing with the band, and demonstrates
an audible chemistry that fuels their
musical dialogue. It also evidences an ensemble
of players on equal terms with each other.
“I’m not looking to be the only soloist on
stage, accompanied by the rest of the band,”
says Postma. “It’s not so much about one person
as it is about the collective music—that’s
what matters. I just try to react as best I can to
what I’m hearing onstage.”
“She doesn’t play with an agenda,” said
drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, a frequent
collaborator whom Postma regards as her mentor.
“Some people come in and you can hear
what they’ve practiced, you can hear the arc to
their solo before they’ve even finished it. But
with Tineke it’s very in the moment, and the
music really does influence where she goes.
And that’s a very mature quality.”
It’s also a quality that filters into Postma’s
other musical endeavors, in particular her composing.
Though she sometimes works in traditional
song form on The Dawn Of Light, more
often her constructions are less conventional
and more organic, ranging from long, throughcomposed
lines to the development of a single
riff or melodic passage. “It’s a very instinctive
kind of composing—it’s not very mathematical,”
she explains. “What I do is record myself
practicing, improvising on the piano, and just
pick phrases and analyze what I’ve been doing
and then build a song around that.”
This method works because she sees her
compositions’ primary purpose to be a framework
for improvising. “They are the playground
for my musicians and myself,” she says.
“They’re really just sketches to allow us to be
as free as we can, without sticking to it too
much—every night playing the same way. And
I find that in playing, I always try to focus on
the melody, which for me is the important part
of the song.”
There is, however, more dimension to
Postma’s work than her apparent single-mindedness
about improvisation might suggest.
Take, for example, her double instrumentation.
Postma started as exclusively an alto player,
but to take advantage of a greater sonic range
she now divides her time equally between it
and the soprano—playing the latter with soaring
lyricism and the former with more gravel
and bottom.
She’s also a serious student of classical
music. “I really only studied jazz in school,”
she says, referring to both the Conservatorium
van Amsterdam and Manhattan School of
Music. “But now I find classical music very
inspiring, all the beautiful harmonies and
the melodies of composers like Debussy and
Tchaikovsky.” The Dawn Of Light also features
a robust, alto sax-led interpretation of a section
from Floresta do Amazonas, a concert classical
work by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-
Lobos. (Another Villa-Lobos piece appears on
her 2009 Etcetera Now release, The Traveller.)
If she’s currently fascinated with the
European tradition, however, Postma’s respect
for and engagement with American musicians
is inescapable. She describes Wayne Shorter
and Herbie Hancock as her heroes. At the
Manhattan School, her saxophone teachers
were Dave Liebman and Dick Oatts. Postma
has frequently collaborated with Carrington,
and the saxophonist appeared on Carrington’s
2011 release, The Mosaic Project (Concord).
On The Dawn Of Light, Esperanza Spalding
appears as a guest vocalist, and the Villa-Lobos
piece is balanced with a cover of Thelonious
Monk’s “Off Minor.”
Improvisation may be her stated forte, but
Postma’s artistic voice is ultimately a personal
one on all fronts. —Michael J. West
Joke Schot
22 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011