To Van Iterson, there are no boundaries or set styles in music: jazz rock, fusion, cross over, acoustic jazz. ‘The balance has shifted towards acoustic jazz’, he comments. ‘Not consciously, it just happened. I like it all, as long as there is room to improvise’. And jazz has always been there, from his childhood onwards. His father was an amateur jazz pianist with a large record collection. When Martijn was 9 he started guitar lessons, from 15 onwards he was playing at the Leiden Jazz Café ‘The Duke’. ‘There was jazz there almost every day, the generation just a bit older than mine played there: Ben van der Dungen, Jarmo Hoogendijk, Toon Roos and pianist Cees Slinger, every week with a guest musician. So I just absorbed it all! Now and again I played with them, they were so much better than I was – very good to stretch your limits!’