Rotterdam has long been a city where grit meets imagination, where hard industrial edges collide with visionary art. It makes perfect sense, then, that one of its most fascinating contemporary jazz voices, drummer and composer Ruud Voesten, would emerge from this landscape with a project as ambitious and layered as Ambrosia II. Released on November 7, 2025, this ten-track album continues Voesten’s deep dive into Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, shifting from the fiery descent of Inferno into the luminous ascent of Purgatorio. The result is a work of rare scope: intellectually rich, emotionally fearless, and musically dazzling.
Voesten has always been the kind of artist who sees jazz not just as a genre, but as a language capable of carrying philosophical and emotional weight. His journey began at 15, pounding out rhythms inspired by punk rock idols. But once jazz found him — improvisational, flexible, demanding — he recognized his true home. After years of study at the conservatories of Arnhem and Rotterdam, he built a career as a sideman with KRACH, Rok Zalokar Trio, and Fish Country. Yet the pull toward authorship and experimentation proved irresistible.
Under the moniker ROEST and later as the founder of the alternative jazz festival Branie, Voesten established himself as a fearless stylist unafraid of dissonance, complexity, or conceptual ambition. Everything sharpened in 2023 with the release of Ambrosia, a stunning reimagining of Dante’s Inferno that channeled the seven deadly sins through explosive compositions and improvisational fury. That album didn’t just push the boundaries of Dutch jazz — it cemented Voesten as one of Europe’s most imaginative modern bandleaders.
Now, with Ambrosia II, he takes the next step in a sweeping trilogy inspired by Dante’s journey through the afterlife. If the previous record explored the torment and chaos of the underworld, Ambrosia II climbs the seven terraces of Purgatory, scaling toward enlightenment, humility, and release. It is an album less about fire than about friction — the friction of transformation, of striving upward, of facing the self with discipline instead of despair.
The lineup remains consistent, reflecting a band that has grown together through dozens of concerts and countless improvisational flights. Mo van der Does (alto saxophone) and Wietse Voermans (tenor saxophone) supply the album’s emotional and harmonic spine, weaving dialogues that feel both ancient and urgent. Koen Schalkwijk shifts between piano and synthesizer, giving the record its celestial glow and electronic edge. Tijs Klaassen’s double bass grounds the ensemble through each thematic ascent, while Voesten himself commands the rhythmic architecture — intricate, restless, elegant, and always in motion.
From the opening track Strand, the world of Ambrosia II unfolds like a mist rising from the sea. Airy, searching phrases hint at the purifying breath that defines Dante’s climb. Good things come to those who … takes on the sense of a ritual uncompleted, a phrase intentionally left open, mirroring both moral questioning and musical suspense. The album’s narrative thread becomes clearer with Icarus, a meditation on ambition and fallibility. Rather than casting Icarus as a cautionary symbol, the piece wrestles with the beauty and tragedy of failed transcendence — ambition as both sin and salvation.
Voesten’s humor and intellect shine through in titles like But what if I’m Watson?, which playfully nods to logic, deduction, and the vulnerability of relying on reason alone during spiritual ascent. Luchtig shifts the mood into something lighter, a sonic breath between denser meditations. The band’s improvisational unity is on full display here — the sense of listening, reacting, absorbing.
One of the album’s standouts, The best at marshmallow test, cleverly references the famous psychological study on delayed gratification. Here, Voesten transforms the idea into a musical metaphor for restraint and desire. Tension builds in tight rhythmic knots, released only when the band collectively exhales into a swirling melodic payoff.
Tracks like Klatergoud and Raw beans deepen the album’s thematic palette, exploring dissatisfaction, cleansing, and the material illusions humans cling to on their path to clarity. A lure serves as the record’s emotional hinge, its motifs gently teasing out the idea of temptation — a force that can divert or refine the soul.
The closing piece Tuin feels like stepping into a garden after a long, arduous climb. It is tender, reflective, filled with space and light. There is a sense of arrival but not resolution — a perfect reflection of Purgatory’s upward spiral, where transformation is ongoing, and enlightenment is always just beyond reach.
What makes Ambrosia II extraordinary is its fusion of head and heart. The compositions are undeniably complex, with rhythmic structures that recall contemporary classical music and harmonic progressions that feel daring and architectural. Yet the emotional core remains warm, human, and deeply accessible. Each track invites the listener into a story, an inquiry, a question about what it means to struggle, grow, and ascend.
In an era when jazz is constantly reinventing itself, Ruud Voesten and Ambrosia stand out for their willingness to engage with literature, philosophy, and storytelling without sacrificing groove, fire, or spontaneity. Ambrosia II is both a continuation and an evolution — a bridge between earthly imperfection and spiritual aspiration, crafted with precision and played with heart.
As Voesten prepares to take this album on tour, one thing is clear: his climb is far from over. And with each record, each composition, and each conceptual leap, he invites us to ascend with him — one terrace at a time.
