“I also want to mention a recording that’s been consistently lifting my spirits all week, the debut album from an Amsterdam quartet led by pianist and composer Oscar Jan Hoogland called LOOT. My ardor for the golden age of Amsterdam free jazz remains undiminished: the world sketched out by Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, and Willem Breuker that blossomed into one of the most exciting and distinctive eras in modern music history between the 1970s and 1990s, as masterfully chronicled by Kevin Whitehead in his essential book New Dutch Swing. “
