Daniel Daemen

'Draai om je oren'

* Daniël Daemen is a technically accomplished saxophone player. In his love for jazz music, he searches for and finds freedom. Melody, tone and rhythm sound like a poetic story. This young and enthusiastic quartet colors his lyrical voice. Soft, beautiful, well-balanced. Daniël Daemen knows how to combine rest, lyricism and improvisation. It's great to follow this 'other' groove, and to listen to it. This is tasty jazz, made of the right stuff.

Jo Dautzenberg - reviewer 'Draai om je oren'

'Jazzmozaïek' - 2 december 2012

Highest rated CD in Jazzmozaïek magazine.

'MUZE'

* Not one of many notes, just the right ones.

Tonight, we listen to Daniël Daemen Quartet. It seems as if Daemen finally found his groove with this quartet. The qualities of this group make him really come forward. Gone are the timidity and modesty from the past. Here we have a saxophonist as a leader, who provides excellent compositions. Someone with his things sorted out.
Daniël Daemen mesmerizes with a whisperlike playing that comes in rockhard. He isn’t one of many notes, but he knowns to pick the right ones.

His playing seems somehow frugal, but is rich and powerfull in its insight and expression in composition and improvisation. Young and talented, is the German piansist Lucas Leidinger. He’s got a great technique and makes the Fender Rhodes, which is new to him, really his.
Drummer Etienne Nillesen is, as always, worth the effort. His choice for mallets and other small tools is true earcandy. He swings, puches, and injects this quartet with energy. Suprising is his use of thin, flexible sticks when he plays on the side of his snaredrum. A rare find !
Bass player Matthias Nowak plays excellent and relevant. What really jumps out during this concert is the perfect, automatic transmission to excellarate from a tempo tutti to a faster one and vice versa. A special trademark of the Daniël Daemen Quartet.
‘Little Ballad’ is a composition with a free tempo. It’s played with vulnerability, coloured and balanced on this modal composition that really puches every player to his limits. This piece ends with a delicate fade-out on a small musical box of Nillesen. ‘A Dream’ is the high light of the evening. The intensity of the interpretation is mesmorizing. ‘All the things you are’, the only standard, was played with a very personal touch.
It’s obvious now. Daniël Daemen is here to stay and we’ll know it.

Cees van de Ven - 2012 DDQ live at the MUZE jazzcafé Heusden-Zolder, Belgium