JAMAI
Vocal Jazz Ensemble
Vocal Jazz Ensemble JAMAI was founded in 1989 by John Hondorp, Anneke van Wassenhove, Moniek Korsman, Arend Rensink en Ineke Brocking.
In the opening years they found out there weren't many ensembles who did the same thing: Sing 5-part jazz harmony accompanied by a classical trio: piano-bass-drums. So no bass singing roots, and no tenors and alto's going "doowop-di-bop" but merely a horn section singing their closed block voicings and swinging away.
In the early nineties JAMAI had a tenor change which took some time to recapture the same synergy as before. And in 1998 JAMAI had to go on looking for another tenor. Finding one appeared to be more difficult so the ensemble cut back to 4-part harmony, sung by soprano, mezzo, alto and tenor.
We like our new sound a lot, it seems more flexible, just the 4 of us. There is a transparency that always cost us a lot of energy in quintett that seems to be automatically there since we're singing as a quartett.
At the moment JAMAI finishes up rearranging their repertoire from 5 to 4 part and seems ready, and definitely eager to get on the road. Starting up this site, preparing for new recordings, starting a new promotion campaign will hopefully get us where we like to be best: ON STAGE!