“Play comfortable, let the sound come out.” Every Tuesday, Charli Green stimulates the musicians of Studentproof’s Big Band in the Pulsar hall of Luna. He has been conducting them for 27 years and has seen countless students come and go. He remembers the first time he heard the music of Studentproof very well. “They sent me a cassette tape and asked me to become the band’s leader. The music was…” Charli is unable to put it into words, but the negativity is written all over his face. “I was a teacher at the conservatory of Amsterdam back then. I played the tape to my daughter, who was a teenager at the time, and she thought I was mad to take the job.”

No regrets

But he took the job anyway: he travelled from Amsterdam to the Bunker in Eindhoven every week, and to Luna during the last couple of years. “It’s a challenge to get the best out of musicians. I know there was a lot to improve here, haha. When I played another tape to my daughter four months later, she couldn’t believe she was listening to the same students.” Within a few years, Studentproof sounded better than his own jazz department at the conservatory of Amsterdam, says the by now 73-year-old musician.

So, hiring Charli turned out to be perfect decision. But that didn’t prevent Studenproof from being almost dismantled in 2010. Joost Jorritsma was a student at the department of Applied Mathematics that year. The current PhD student is now active as a pianist for Los Pidrillos and the Seasonal Jazz Quintet, both Studenproof bands. “Back in 2010, Studentproof’s members were practically exclusively former students, and the university was thinking about withdrawing funding. Something needed to change.”

Following the example of sister organization Groover in Delft, Studentproof decided to focus on student recruitment and started to organize several activities. Jorritsma: “We became active during the introduction week and organized jam sessions and performances in cafés such as Stage Music, the Oude Rechtbank and Kraaij & Balder.” He talks about ‘we’ because he was a board member between 2011 and 2014. Bands and combos were founded, Jazzal came first. Studentproof now has eight other bands in addition to the Big Band.

Space

Ruben Hamans, the association’s secretary, informs us that membership has run up to more than seventy people, twice as much as before. He himself, incidentally, became a member only after a fellow student in the department of Applied Physics dragged him along to a jam session. He now plays the drums in Hootie Tootie, a band that mostly plays rock- n-roll covers. The membership growth is largely due to the move to Luna. “We are more visible now. Both fellow musicians and the audience are present during our rehearsals and jam sessions in Hubble.”

Charli still misses the Bunker by the way. “It was very relaxed there. What we made, we made for ourselves. You don’t need a luxurious setting to make a beautiful sound. The Bunker was proof of that.”