LONDON: The Parakeet

Monday 9th October, 2023

8:00pm

Event information

Kasper Rietkerk - Alto Saxophone
Max McLeish - Trombone
Jonah Evans - Drums
Alex Lockheart - Guitar
Benji Bown - Piano
Toby Yapp - Bass

KRSIX is an instrumental sextet led by saxophonist Kasper Rietkerk. Their narrative music is most reminiscent of something between Brian Blade’s Fellowship of Acoustic and Radiohead. They did their first few shows in the spring of 2021 in London, where they are based. The music is rooted in jazz but you can hear influences from rock to folk and blues music. All the music is written and arranged by Kasper and the songs are mostly influenced by things that he observed and experienced after he moved to London.

Award-winning saxophonist Kasper Rietkerk worked with Eddie Chacon, John Caroll Kirby, Ben Nobuto, Jean Toussaint (among others) and he is part of the Emma Rawicz Jazz Orchestra. He did several tv and radio performances and took part in writing the music for VPRO’s television series ‘Naar Bed’. In 2023 Kasper and his band KRSIX played several gigs in the UK, where Kasper is based, and in the Netherlands, where he is originally from.

With his Dutch group Das Sound Kollektiv, Kasper released two albums and an EP of which they got most ‘successful’ with their ‘+1’ release. For this release he worked with many singers and rappers as Ntjam Rosie, Ruben Hein, Rico and Tennishu (Butcher Brown).

Kasper is an alto saxophonist who started playing saxophone at a young age. A bit later, he first heard the sound of saxophonists like Cannonball Adderley, Kenny Garret and Paul Desmond and that made him eventually decide to study jazz saxophone. After his bachelor he moved to London and graduated from his masters at the Royal Academy of Music in 2023, where he got an award for his final exam performance.
Kasper is currently working on the release of his debut album, recorded with KRSIX in London. He released his home recorded and self produced EP ‘alt.esc’ in February 2022.
He is involved in other projects such as the Medan Trio, where he writes and performs improvised music accompanied by visual art. From 2019 till 2021, he played lead alto in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra from the Netherlands, which was led by Ruben Hein.

‘Great alto sound that carried strongly over the band’ Jason Yarde
‘Fantastic saxophonist’ Jean Toussaint
‘Played with great projection and fluency of ideas’ Michael Mondesir