Photo credit: Anne Sophie Leurink
Please you tell us about your new album and UK album launch?
The Happy Worrier feels like my constant state of mind. After winning the Brubeck Living Legacy Prize, I composed all the music during the summer of 2024. When later revisiting these compositions and their titles, I realized most pieces reflected my tendency to worry about a lot of things, while acting happy on the outside.
As we age, our perspective broadens—the lens through which we view the world widens. This means we see a lot more than we did when we were younger. Alongside discovering wonderful new experiences and places, you become aware that many people haven’t been as lucky as you.
Though I feel incredibly fortunate, you can’t be happy all the time of course—and ironically, I then find myself worrying about that too! I think this cycle of gratitude and concern is the place where this album comes from.
What I am very happy about it that I was able to work with the amazing John Parricelli, Tom Herbert, Jonah Evans and Rebecka Edlund (as a feature on one track). They all have contributed to the sound of this album and I feel very lucky to be working with such great musicians. I can’t wait for the album launch on the 23rd of June at PizzaExpress Live in Soho, London, where I will be sharing the stage with them again!
What other projects are you currently involved in?
I released an album with my band KRSIX a year ago. I am part of the Emma Rawicz Jazz Orchestra, play regularly at the Vortex and I have contributed a lot on other people’s original music, Jean Toussaint, Mark Lockheart, and many others.
What are you currently listening to and what was the last CD or download you bought?
I listen to a lot of different music. Currently a blend of Cannonball Adderley, Sabrina Carpenter, Shostakovich, Q-Tip and Lee Konitz. The last CD I bought is The Rhythm of The Saints by Paul Simon.
What is your all-time favourite album and why?
That’s an impossible question but I will go for Charlie Parker with Strings, first of all because I love how Parker sounds on that album. It might have been one of the first times I heard Charlie Parker when I was younger. And from that moment on I wanted to play the alto exactly like him. Maybe it’s not a surprising answer for an alto player to name the most popular album by the most influential alto player ever but I can’t help the impact it has had on me.
Who has caught your attention recently that we should be listening out for?
I was listening to a live concert by Samora Pinderhughes the other day and apparently still a lot of people haven’t heard of him. His music, but also his personality and thought-through music inspire me a lot on so many levels. I think everyone should listen to some of his most recent albums.
The Happy Worrier by Kasper Rietkerk is released on 27th June, 2025
Album launch on Monday 23rd June at the Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho
