Yves Peeters Quartet - 31/03/2007@L'Archiduc, Bruxelles

Nicolas Kummert - ts
Frederik Leroux - g
Nic Thys - el b
Yves Peeters - d

You may have gotten to know Yves a little bit in his musician questionnaire. He's a fine drummer who plays in a chiselled, sensitive and flexible way. Since returning from a seven-year stay in New York, Nic Thys has been getting involved in a number of groups. His playing here was both laid-back and solid. His accompaniment used chords as much as single-note lines and his solos were particularly lyrical.


The quartet is a new one, and while reading furiously off the sheet paper, the played a couple of fairly mellow sets made up of material from a happy, straight-ahead Adbullah Ibrahim waltz and drifting tunes from Bill Frisell and Paul Motian elongated "Strange Meeting." The originals were a bit more dynamic.

Frederik's "Abstract" opened with a full-band unison head that fused the rhythmic sensibilities of Monk and M-Base. Nicolas's "Liberté" used an low-key asymetrical drum 'n' bass drum beat to underpin a slowly crescendoing tenor solo. The highlight, though, was Nicolas's arrangement of "Monk's Dream:" Yves's quiet second-line drumming combined with Thys's bass part for a diffuse, dreamy-soul feel, but everything came into sharp focus for the staccato parts of the melody. I was reminded of Jason Moran's treatment of "Crepuscule For Nellie."