Peter Van Bergen

Unlike their American counterparts, European free jazz musicians typically move in "new music" circles without fear of losing their credibility as jazz artists. It seems as if the stateside preoccupation with maintaining jazz's stylistic purity is not an issue with the music's practitioners on the other side of the Atlantic. The Dutch saxophonist Peter Van Bergen is a prime example of this; not only does he regularly collaborate with some of the world's finest and best-known free jazz musicians (for example: Cecil Taylor, Misha Mengelberg, Anthony Braxton, Han Bennink), he also is an accomplished performer of contemporary composed music by the likes of Louis Andriessen, Guus Janssen, Georg Katzer, Huib Emmer, Cornelis de Bondt, and Paul Termos.



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