I had a brief chat with Mengelberg some years ago and he said that he had lost interest in composing and now perfered just to improvise with the band. Does this still hold or is there a chance they will also play some of Mengelbergs compositions (which I really like).

Last time I saw them was a couple of years ago; They play their hometown once a year on average and I somehow am always abroad when they do. from what I recall, and from what I understand after having seen M.M. many times live here, he always plays some of his compositions. Very often his well known pieces (esp from Whos Bridge) appear in the middle of some seemingly loose impro piece that instantly turns into a groovin bop tune to be lost again in free forms. I recall that they also performed some Monk pieces maybe even Nichols. :) manolis --------------------------------------------------------------------- E. Papagiannakis Vrije Universiteit Tel: +31 20 4447934 FEW, N&S Fax: +31 20 4447999 Biophysics De Boelelaan 1081 http://www.nat.vu.nl/bio/index-en.html 1081 HV, Amsterdam The Netherlands ---------------------------------------------------------------------