(seminarSPIEGEL) We are very proud to announce that coming September a new album of Toots Thielemans will be released on Challenge Jazz.

The international jazz hero of Belgium will present European Quartet Live on the Middelheim Jazz Festival in Antwerp on Saturday 14th of August.

The band with Toots Thielemans: Karel Boehlee, Hans van Oosterhout and Hein Van de Geyn, exists for many years now and played were many concerts in many places.

Then there was the tour in Holland in 2006. Many theaters, many great audiences that always embraced us with so much warmth. Chris Weeda, the sound engineer, was the fifth member of the band. Always making the music sound warm, full, generous - and recording many of the performances. The music was strong, confident, full of life and vibrancy. Toots played so well, everyone played well. There were more concerts the years after and we found ourselves with a wealth of recorded material.

This is an album so representative of Toots' live performances, an album that captures the joy, the risks and interaction; an album that captivates the majestic melodies, the singing of a man who lives such a life filled with music and emotion.
The wise old man, with the spirit of a teenager.

The delicate Balance between the introspective and the exuberant - always giving, always with the desire to communicate - communicate to the fellow musicians, communicate to the listener. Toots' words: “Between a smile and a tear...” , situate these sublime live-recordings taken from concerts of Toots Thielemans with his European Quartet.