David "Creatchy" Garfield

A dream come true: The first release of David Garfield´s group Karizma was the album "A Dream Come True". Years later David Garfield entered the stage at the venue ‘Train’ in Århus, Denmark, as a part of the band’s European promotion tour featuring Vinnie Colaiuta, Neil Stubenhaus, Michael Landau and David Garfield. There were a lot of local musicians in the audience and one of them was drummer Henrik Engqvist.

He was here to hear and see his idol Vinnie Colaiuta but as the concert went by he was also touched by David Garfield’s performance. A few months later Henrik Engqvist released an album with his band "Engqvist Orkester", a project featuring Jimmy Haslip, Robben Ford and others. Engqvist Orkester was hired as the opening act at the Ålborg Blues- & Jazz Festival, taking place in the northern part of Denmark.

Henrik Engqvist thought it would be a good idea to feature David Garfield at this event. Henrik got in contact with Creatchy himself through the internet, and after a few emails things were settled. It seems things fall into place if you believe in them, because suddenly the "dream came true".

The song selection was a mix of Garfield songs, cover songs that Garfield had recorded on different projects, and also some songs from Engqvist Orkester album. David Garfield received the material and Enqqvist Orkester rehearsed the songs by themselves. It was agreed that the day before the gig, Garfield would join the band and play the set so everything would be ready for the actual concert.

Engqvist Orkester is a great danish fusionband with 4 members:

Henrik Engqvist (drums):
Educated at the PIT - Musicians Institute Los Angeles 1986 and at the Los Angeles Music Academy, 1998 and 2000. He’s also had private lessons with Joe Porcaro, Dave Weckl, Joey Heredia, Alex Acuna, Steve Houghton and Chuck Flores. Been at Master classes with Gregg Bissonette, Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jack Dejohnette. Besides that he has done a lot of private session work in Denmark, been a guest educator and won different jazz prizes.

Jacob Rose (sax):
Educated at the Nordjysk Musik-konservatorie ´93-´98. Has studied in Los Angeles with Dave Pozzi in ´97 and in Los Angeles, USA ´97. Won the jazz prize 2000 in Denmark.

Jens Nørholm (keyboard):
Teacher at the Musik Konservatorie in Ålborg and Århus. Jens is also teaching at a lot of different music schools.

Kim Bang (bass):
Student at the Musik Konservatorie. Has over the years received tutoring from some of the best bass players in Denmark, such as Lars Danielsson, Nikolaj Bentzon, Bo Stief and others.

To the Garfield event they teamed up with Lars Maasboel (Zididada, Stig Rossen etc.) on guitar. Lars Maasboel is educated at the Musik Konservatorium in Copenhagen and he has been at the G.I.T. (guitar institute of technology, cal. U.S.A.), were he graduated with honours in 1990.

On May 30^th 2001 David Garfield arrived at Ålborg Airport, and a press conference was held an hour later. David told everyone about his work and was very pleased to participate in this event. He said: ‘I make music and this is my life.’ He liked the idea so much about going to Europe and play with some musicians that he’d never met before. He anticipated a positive outcome, ‘you will hear it at the stage’, he said.

The rehearsals began the same afternoon. All the music sheets were copied, the songs were chosen, and the set started with the "E Minor Shuffle" song, then IRE, LowDown, Bag´s Groove, Dream Come True. David Garfield is a great musical director, his feeling for the arrangements is superb. It was a great experience to see how he made these musicians play their best and even beyond. I think that David Garfield was surprised that Engqvist Orkester really knew the songs in detail and as the hours went by, it became better and better. David Garfield quickly renamed Engqvist Orkester to "The Danish Cats", so now David has a new backing band in Scandinavia, if this event is going to happen again.

After 1 1/2 rehearsal day, the event was coming closer. A couple of hours before soundcheck, the "Dreamland Mobile Studio Recording" was set up to record the concert, as this would a good opportunity to make a live album for Engqvist Orkester, if everything was going as planned. An hour before soundcheck the last things were done, the set-list was chosen and "Garfield and his Danish Cats" were ready to hit the stage.

The set-list was:

1.       IRE (from the "Dream Come True" album)
2.       Lowdown (from the "Tribute To Jeff" album)
3.       Bag´s Groove (from the "Tribute To Jeff" album)
4.       Fedest (from the "Engqvist Orkester" album)
5.       The Things In Life (from the "Engqvist Orkester" album)
6.       E Minor Shuffle (from the "Tribute To Jeff" album)
7.       Soul Speak (from the "Engqvist Orkester" album)
8.       Morph (from the "Engqvist Orkester" album),
9.       Dream Come True (from the "Dream Come True" album),
10.      Blues For Ronnie (from the "Dream Come True" album)
11.      Corbitt Van Brauer (from the "Dream Come True" album).

It was a great pleasure to see and hear David Garfield with Engqvist Orkester. The concert was great, a lot of power from the stage, and David Garfield did lead the band and featured everyone on stage in the different songs. It was great pleasure to see the musical chases on stage, the play-off between the two keyboard players. All songs at the concert were all in special extended versions, and some in very rare arrangements, and David Garfield showed his musical talents. It was the keys and the music that told the story.

I started with the words "A Dream Come True", it was like that for Henrik Engqvist and his Orkester, and who knows?, Maybe they’ll change the band name to "The Danish Cats". I am sure that this will not be the only event with David Garfield and Engqvist Orkester.

2001, Kenneth Bremer - Blue Desert.