Ten Years of Ten Sails: Luke Howard & Nadje Noordhuis

Written by Nadje Noordhuis

Ten years ago, when Luke and I were preparing our album Ten Sails, it never crossed my mind that it would impact so many listeners. At the time I looked upon the process as a fun recording project in Europe with my dear friend of many years. Luke and I had attended the same college in Melbourne in the early 2000’s, but had never played together as a duo. I actually don’t recall us ever playing together until the year before making this record. We brought in our own tunes for a jazz quartet gig only to discover that we had used the same chord progressions in a couple of tunes. A small hint from the universe, perhaps. 

The process of putting Ten Sails together was low key. We each added our tunes into a collective Dropbox file, and played through them for the first time in Luke’s Berlin apartment a few days before we headed into the studio. Our rehearsal days were leisurely – we edited our charts, slowly shaping what the record would be, and then went out for a great meal afterwards. 

The recording studio was in engineer Martyn Heyne’s apartment. We were all in one large room together, including Martyn. That was a surprise! Because trumpets are usually rather loud, and a piano doctored with extra felt to dampen the sound is extremely quiet, we were separated by an acoustic baffle between us. This meant that we couldn’t see each other for musical cues but instead relied on instinct. I had to play the most quietly I had ever played in my life, which was utterly exhausting. I remember lying on the floor after we finished recording. The music dictated that I pay extra close attention to sound and articulation, and I experimented with using my flugel mouthpiece in my trumpet and trumpet mouthpiece in my flugel in order to get the most gentle approach for each tune. It felt revolutionary not to improvise, considering I had worked in the jazz world in New York over a decade at that point. 

Having the great Jan Erik Kongshaug, known for his work recording the majority of record label ECM’s catalog, mix our record was a dream come true. And after sending off this album into the world, receiving messages from listeners expressing how much they love this album has been a beautiful gift. I’m grateful to have this opportunity for a second run of vinyl records, so Ten Sails can continue to live on in many music collections worldwide.

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Ten Sails LP vinyl second pressing on coloured vinyl is now available