Fred Van Hove

Fred Van Hove studied theory, harmony, and piano at the Music Academy in Belgium and began playing professionally in 1964. He experimented with various jazz and dance music idioms before adopting free improvisation as his principal mode of expression. Van Hove began playing with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann in 1966. Their collaboration took different forms, eventually settling into a trio format with drummer Han Bennink, which lasted approximately five years. The solo format would become important to Van Hove; he played his first solo concert in 1970. In the early '70s, Van Hov...