Guitarist Marnix Busstra (1965) is one of the most prominent contemporary jazz guitarists and composers in the Netherlands. He leads the Marnix Busstra Trio and the Buzz Bros Band, besides being the main composer for Dutch theatre diva Karin Bloemen.
photo: Nick van Ormondt   
Marnix comes from a musical family: His dad, Jan Busstra, is a musician and a piano teacher with a great love for jazz. Berthil, his older brother and fellow band member, is a great piano player, and their younger sister Margreet Busstra is a very talented professional saxophonist and singer.
At an early age, Marnix tried his hand at the piano, the drums and the trumpet (and the guitar, as the photo tells...) It wasn't until he turned fifteen that he finally found ‘his’ instrument, the guitar. Although he briefly attended the Hilversum Conservatory, he is truly a self-taught musician.

Developing his own style of playing and composing, Marnix has always been inspired by the great jazz musicians of all times, as well as by music from around the world. These influences can be heard in most of his work.

Marnix joined his first serious band while still in high school. The band, Topaz, included his music teacher and friend, bassist Norbert Sollewijn Gelpke. Topaz played a kind of basic, funky fusion, and Marnix soon started contributing to the band’s repertoire, writing his first songs.

In the 80s, Marnix joined Holland's popular fusion band Last Resort, led by well-known vibraphonist Carl Schulze. Performances at the North Sea Jazz Festival attested to their success.

1989 marked the start of Marnix's first own group, the fusion band Second Vision. Six years later, he started an acoustic band, the Marnix Busstra 4-tet.

The Buzz Bros Band, co-led by Busstra brother Berthil, was created in 2001. Marnix’s most recent projects are the Marnix Busstra trio and the Mike Mainieri/Marnix Busstra Quartet.

In addition to his jazz-oriented instrumental work, Marnix started composing for Karin Bloemen, establishing an intense collaboration with this famous Dutch vocalist and theatre personality.

  

   



Composing has become a second nature for Marnix. His bands, with their specific characters, must be nourished with new material at all times, while writing the music to Karin Bloemen’s lyrics is an on-going process.

Marnix began composing for the first band he joined, Topaz. In his next band, Last Resort, he contributed a growing number of tunes to the often virtuoso repertoire. The decision to form his first own group (Second Vision, 1989), as a vehicle for all the tunes he had written, was no more than logical. Second Vision was around for more then fifteen years, recording three CDs, featuring mostly compositions by Marnix.





In his second band, the Marnix Busstra 4-tet, Marnix was able to explore other avenues of composition based upon a quest for simplicity and the essence of the music.

In the Buzz Bros Band, Marnix chooses to use new instruments, while the compositional process strongly leans towards the creation of moods, or sonic atmospheres.

His most recent undertaking is the Mike Mainieri/Marnix Busstra Quartet. The joint venture with vibist Mike Mainieri stems from their earlier cooperation in Second Vision.

In 1993, Marnix started composing music to the lyrics of vocalist Karin Bloemen. He was honored for his work in this genre when his ballad ‘Geen Kind Meer’ won the prestigious Annie M.G. Schmidt Award for best theatre song in 1996.

        
 

  

Marnix started playing the classical guitar at 14, an acquaintance teaching him some of the basics of the instrument. As his hart was closer to jazz, he soon switched to the electric guitar.

As a guitarist, his deepest influences are unquestionably guitarists like John Scofield, Pat Metheny, and John Abercrombie. Beyond his inspiration from these particular musicians, he has been profoundly influenced by music from around the world. His choice to play the sitar, the Irish bouzouki and – later on – the electric sitar, originate from his love for a wide variety of ethnic musical styles.

Using all these different influences – from jazz to ethnic music and pop – Marnix created very much his own sound and style of playing.


Marnix's instruments:
jazz guitar:
Gibson		 Irish bouzouki:
Fylde		 acoustic guitar:
Albert & Müller		 electric sitar:
Eyb
(Click on a guitar for a larger picture and sound fragment)



 

Marnix decided early in life that he wanted to pursue his own interests. To him, the ideal way to do so is to form a good band with fine musicians that allows for developing and perfecting a characteristic band sound.

This also explains why the line-ups of his bands typically remain the same for such long periods of time: As far as Marnix is concerned, the musicians from his various bands are quite irreplaceable, as each band's specific sound and way of playing has evolved with those individual musicians.

All of his bands have always had their very specific identities.

  • The Marnix Busstra 4-tet followed a quest for simplicity and a journey to the essence of the music;
  • Second Vision endeavored to explore complex compositions in high energy performances;
  • The Buzz Bros Band plays adventurous, freely interpreted electric acoustic funky jazz with an ethnic touch;
  • The Marnix Busstra Trio follows the musical path set out by the 4-tet, but doesn’t stress the search for simplicity that much, keeping all doors wide open;

Marnix is not a band leader in the traditional sense of the word. The term ‘initiator’ is a more accurate description of Marnix's main drive: To find and experience the beauty in music, together with his fellow musicians.
Marnix Busstra 4-tet  
Second Vision
Buzz Bros Band 
 M.B. Trio + Mike Manieri