Rare Groove Ever since some clever English dj's (Gilles Peterson being one
of them) invented the term rare groove in the late '80's, a seemingly
never ending stream of rare groove compilation albums saw the
light of day. This was of corse pioneered by small independent
UK labels such as Charly, Streetsounds and BGP, that started to
tap from American sources for their reissue series. After all
it was the Afro-American society that once invented groove, first
with blues-related worksongs and gospel, later with jazz, r&b,
soul and especially funk. A lot of this groovy material was rare
and obscure, because it was released in limited editions during
the '60's and '70's, in - or aimed at - isolated Afro American
communities in the urban ghetto's and therefore often named race
records. The longevity and relative popularity of rare groove
can simply be explained by the development of a phenomenon called
sampling, Dutch Rare Groove In a music minded country like The Netherlands, with it's proven international awareness (and ditto appeal), the wish for a national rare groove album has been long in existence. The album you are now holding eventually came into being after Bert Taken and Arjo van Loo (the tandem of recording-act Black Market Audio) discovered the vinyl treasures in the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision (Beeld en Geluid), when it was just opening up its vaults through the webstore Fonos (see http://www.fonos.nl). Bert and Arjo teamed up with fellow music fanatics Machgiel Bakker (founding father of Fonos), Sjeng Stokkink (Fonos researcher and senior funkologist) and Maurits de Weert, Enoch Justus, Marco Petersen and Leon Wittenberg, their friends at Supertracks, which is one of the better independent labels in the Netherlands. Finally Peter Boertje (of Essential Dance Music) joined the team to do his specific job on rights-clearances. With Supertracks in the team, it was just a small step to ask their happening act C-Mon & Kypski to fool around with the original material for a bonus CD, offering their rendition of Dutch Rare Groove. Thus 23 tracks recorded between 1967 and 1983 that deserve the term rare groove have been selected for CD 1 and a bunch of tracks done by C-Mon & Kypski and friends are on CD 2. Thanks to it's former overseas territories, Holland has always housed more than just Caucasians. Especially when it comes to singing, the amount of for instance Surinam musicians involved here is striking. Wanna know more about the acts 'n tracks? Just read on... |
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Jerry van Rooyen was born 31 December 1928 in The Hague. He took his first music lessons at the age of eight and soon after joined a brass band on trumpet, his favorite instrument. Later he studied music at the Dutch conservatory in Den Haag and graduated as a music teacher. His professional career started in 1944, as first trumpet in a Dutch revue show. In 1955 he signed as first trumpet and arranger for the famous Dutch radio orchestra The Ramblers, but also jammed with his own jazz combo in nightclubs. 1959 found Van Rooyen in Paris, where he conducted and arranged for Fontana Records, working with Michel Legrand, Claude Bolling and Gilbert Becaud. In 1965 he met film producer Pier A. Caminneci in Berlin, which made him explore new musical territories by contributing some of the weirdest, most off-beat filmscores of their time, to at least seven Caminneci productions. This seemingly minor event in a very successful and international career was compiled in 2003 by German specialist label Crippled Dick: Jerry van Rooyen At 250 Miles Per Hour. From this album we chose The Great Bank Robbery; pure prehistoric acid-jazz! |
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Rob Franken played keyboards in more than just Dutch jazz-circles, until his untimely and sudden death in late 1983, at the age of only 42. He is described by the people that worked with him as a true magician, a slightly introvert but purely musical sorcerer, who had a great influence on his - often younger - fellow musicians. He even had a great unfluence on - obviously older - Toots Thielemans, with whom he toured Europe for several years. Franken had a good ear for sounds and often experimented with new instruments. He was the first in Holland to make good use of the electric Fender Rhodes piano for instance. From his discography two albums stand out: 'Pon My Soul on Philips (1967) and Ob-la-di Ob-la-da on Camden/Teldec (1969), both with his organ driven combo, The Rob Franken Organ-Ization. Hunky-Dory (1969) was written by all members of this group: Rob Franken (hammond), Joop Scholten (guitar), Piet Hein Veening (bass) and Louis Debij (drums). |
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Jack van Poll has been a steady factor in the Dutch jazzscene for five decades now. His album Jackpot on Philips (1968) has for a long time been Rainer Trüby's best kept secret in his dj-sets all over the world, because on this album the Fender Rhodes sound that characterizes the work of Kruder & Dorfmeister is ubiquitous. Van Poll, born 1934 in Roosendaal, saw this album as a one-time experiment. None of his other albums fit the rare groove concept, though his achievements in jazz circles as a keyboardist, composer and bandleader are unmistakable. In 1985 he was the pianist behind Dee Dee Bridgewater and a featured soloist in Lionel Hampton's Band touring the USA. Dizzy Gillespie saw one of these gigs and said: "I had to look twice before I believed this Dutch cat was white." In the '80's Jack moved to Antwerp, where he founded his jazzclub and label, both called September, in '95 he moved to Cape Town in South Africa, still playing and recording. Check his website at www.jackvanpoll.com |
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The Dave Pike Set may have had a leader that was not Dutch, but vibraphonist Dave Pike (born March 23, 1938 in Detroit, Michigan) chose to work in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany from 1968 to 1973, living in Loosdrecht. In '68 he recorded the album Got The Feelin' on the Dutch label Relax at Studio van de Water in Soest, with Rob Franken on organ, Joop Scholten on guitar, Ruud Jacobs on electric bass and Louis DeBij on drums, the same Dutch combo he performed with all over Europe. The pretty psychedelic El-Die-Bie is from this album and was obviously named after the drummer, Louis DeBij, who is still very active today. Louis remembers The Dave Pike Set even did a special gig in Scheveningen in '68 with a young vocalist named Rob de Nijs. |
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Vitesse featuring Herman Brood is a unique and one-time only combination in the long career of drummer/bandleader and vocalist Herman van Boeyen (born January 15, 1949 in Amsterdam). Unique, because this only happened on his debut album in 1975, even though he made a lot of albums since. Herman Brood left Vitesse after this one album and would later become the biggest - and according to many the only real - rock star that ever lived (he ended his life on July 11, 2001) in the Netherlands. Funky But Clean is the first track of this first album, and once again the first cut proved to be the deepest! It also contains the contribution of the funkiest Dutch bassplayer ever (Paul Bagmeijer), some staggering clavinet playing by Rob van Donselaar and the co-writing of another then up-and-coming Dutch funk celebrity: Peter Smid of Houseband fame. |
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The Houseband from Amsterdam was one of the first Dutch funk bands, led by singer/bassplayer Peter Smid and singer/guitarist Harry Hardholt. In '74/'75 they started as The VPRO Houseband (a Dutch broadcasting corporation), doing own sessions and playing behind American promo-touring musicians such as Dr John, Ry Cooder and Chip Taylor. Next they became The Paradiso Houseband, doing pretty much the same in this still famous Amsterdam venue. When they finally decided to become a proper recording and touring band, they hit the national charts with their debut album Sympatico on the Jungle label (Basart, 1977) and with their first two singles (Dancing Shoes and Don't Lose Your Love). They made two more albums since: Numero Uno on Poker (Basart, 1978) and Hot Enuff (RCA, 1979). Their early radio sessions were released as a limited edition by the VPRO itself on an album entitled Zeldzaam & Zonderling, which is Dutch for Rare & Peculiar. For more info on The Houseband go to Peter Smid's website www.smusic.nl |
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Chris Hinze has always been able to combine musicianship and the music business, as one of Holland's most versatile flute players and founder/owner of Keytone Productions (label and publishing). Through the years he released over a hundred albums with jazz and world music. Of other musicians, with other musicians, under his own name, but foremost: as a leader, with his Chris Hinze Combination, where fusion and funk often dominate. He debuted on vinyl in 1969 with the Chris Hinze/Dick van de Capelle Trio. In 1970 his first Combination album was released on CBS: Stoned Flute. After a string of seventies CBS albums he recorded the album Bamboo Music in New York (1978), for Atlantic Records, of which we chose Bamboo Magic. In the early eighties Hinze started to travel, first to India, which led to many world music releases on his label. Today he's just as active, dividing his time between Ibiza and Holland. He even revived his Combination in the new millennium. For more info on Chris Hinze and his label check www.keytone.nl. |
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Oscar Harris was born on November 30, 1943 in Paramaribo, Surinam and came to The Netherlands late 1963. As a starting singer/songwriter he released some of his work on singles independently and performed with his backing band The Twinkle Stars throughout the country, until he was signed by Dureco in 1969. A string of successful singles and albums followed on Dureco labels such as Omega, Blue Elephant and Pink Elephant, between '69 and '76. Especially his ballads became big hits, such as Try A Little Love (1970) and Soldier's Prayer (1971). But an occasional funky track could often also be found on his albums, especially Relax (Before Doin' Sex) in 1972. In '73 Harris went solo and stayed just as successful until 1983. In '95 he made a comeback with the single The Medley. Today he is still performing and releasing records independently, the last album being Salsa Romantica on Friends Music Entertainment (2002). |
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Jimmy Bellmartin recorded with several producers between 1970 and 1982, but with Surinam born Frank Smith aka Old Shatterhand from Amsterdam he created his funkiest material. Jimi Silawanebessy (his real name) was born in Bogor, Indonesia in 1949 and he came to Holland when he was just one year old. He first was a member of a group called Witch Concern and started his solo-career in 1970, which meant recording singles and performing with a coverband for American soldiers in Germany and Holland, where Jimmy often became James Brown and/or Wilson Pickett. In '75 his singles were compiled on the Polydor album The Best Of Jimmy Bellmartin, including So Fine, on which you may recognise the backing vocals of a famous female trio: Patricia Paay, Yvonne Keeley and Anita Meyer. Jimmy is still performing today and hopes to record his next album with producer Ernst Jansz (of Doe Maar-fame). He wants to do an acoustic album this time, but still as a soulsinger. |
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The Free was a 14-piece coverband from Rotterdam, deep into American soul. Their leadsinger Roy Nickelson, born on Aruba, was very much into Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and the early James Brown material. The group, already existing as Free Unlimited, became a birthday present in 1968 for Ide de Jong, who wanted to manage a band when he turned 18, and his father, head of the Algemene Bank Nederland, saw no problem in arranging this for his son. Thus they became The Free, made an album (the Funky Free, on Philips, 1969) produced by Fred Haayen (the man behind Golden Earring); supported Aretha Franklin during her Dutch concert in '68 (with the Paay Sisters as backing vocalists); and even performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in '69. Their funky track Soul Party only came out as a single in '68. Near the end of their two year existence, Ferry Maat was their keyboardist; Maat would later become a famous radio dj with his Soul Show. Guitarist Egon Verhoeven played in Hans Dulfer's group during most of the '90's and nowadays is in a group called Mastodon, together with Free's leader and keyboardist Peter Vlietstra, who became a history teacher. Roy Nickelson died in 2002. |
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Ronald Snijders is a Dutch/Surinam composer, arranger, bandleader, singer, publicist, musicologist and musician playing flute, born in Paramaribo in 1951. He has always been working independent, from the very start in 1977, when he released his first album Natural Sources on his BSM (Black Straight Music) label, until today, some twenty albums further down the road. He has often been crossing Surinam music with jazz and funk. More than any other Dutch act he deserves the term Dutch Rare Groove, because his first five albums have been much sought after collector items for several years now on the UK market and beyond: Natural Sources (1977), A Safe Return (1980), Black Straight Music (1981), Quartz (1983) and Funky Flute (1985). And he still knows how to capture the atmosphere of these albums in his recent work. Just check his website www.ronaldsnijders.nl and you will know all about this beautiful person. |
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Seemon & Marijke stem from the hippie and flower power scene of the sixties, when they became big names in fashion and design. From the playful city of Amsterdam they soon flared out to the Beatles household in London, and from there to Los Angeles, persuaded by Graham Nash and consorts. Though they both sing and play several instruments, they never wanted to label themselves as professional musicians, but still Graham Nash organised and produced two poppy albums for them: The Fool on Mercury (1969) and Son Of America on A&M (1971), with musicians such as Booker T Jones, Chris Ethridge, Richard Fortune and Johnny Barbata backing them. Marijke (Koger) still lives in LA, Seemon (Posthuma) came back to Amsterdam, where he lives and works as a painter. His undoubtedly colourful memoirs will be published in a book next year. |
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Casey & The Pressure Group was the brainchild of keyboardist and composer Cees (Casey) Schrama (born 1936 in The Hague), who early in his career landed in quite a mighty environment: he became the house producer of production company Red Bullet, owned by Willem van Kooten (still one of Holland's leading music entrepreneurs) and Fred Haayen (the man behind Golden Earring). With an obvious love for the music of Booker T & The MG's and The Ramsey Lewis Trio Schrama generated four intriguing albums with his Pressure Group between '69 and '72: The Beast And I (reissued as Comin' Home), Power House, Lazy Bones and Memphis Revisited. Today Schrama still is in a mighty environment, wearing many hats, such as jazz consultant of Universal International, board member of Dutch copyright organisation Buma/Stemra and advisor of the North Sea Jazz Festival (where he is also the host of the prestigious PWA Hall), to name just a few. |
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Fred van Zegveld became known as the organ player of a charting Beatlesque group called Roek Williams & The Fighting Cats, though they changed their name into Roek's Family on the day Fred joined them in 1968, ready for their biggest hit Get Yourself A Ticket in '69. Van Zegveld's only solo album Dynamite (on Park, Basart, 1969) shows his love for Booker T & The MG's, Jimmy Smith and such, though most of the tracks on it are his own compositions. 1969 must have been a busy year for him, because Van Zegveld was also a member of a group called The Flood that year, together with two musicians that also played in Roek Williams's group: Richard de Bois on bass (who became a top producer ten years later, for amongst others The Dolly Dots) and Will Luikinga on sax and flute (who became a famous dj on Radio Veronica afterwards). Van Zegveld, who is still active as a musician today, doesn't even own a proper copy of his album anymore, and if he wants to buy one on eBay, he has to pay at least 300 dollars! |
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The Playboys was a cover band neatly performing in clubs every weekend during the late sixties, based in Het Gooi, a central part of The Netherlands, not only topographically, but also socially, because of it's strong media concentration. No wonder quite a few of these musicians became important players in the Dutch music business afterwards. Keyboardist, trumpet player and band leader Paul Natte became a famous arranger for numerous Dutch top-acts in popular music; leadsinger and guitarist Frans de Wit has been a longtime international bigshot in publishing; sax player and backing singer Peter van der Meulen became the owner of the very happening seventies nightclub Smugglers in Het Gooi; and bassplayer Reinout Weidema became a top radioproducer for broadcasting corporation AVRO. They made only two singles, the first not without success: the jazzy instrumental Snoopy reached the lower regions of the Dutch charts in '69 and afterwards became the tune of two well attended radioshows (VARA's Sport Show and Hollands Glorie). |
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Rogier van Otterloo has done a thousand important things in music and can easily be regarded as the Dutch Quincy Jones. He wrote the scores for famous Dutch movies such as Turks Fruit and Soldaat Van Oranje; he became the new conductor of the prestigeous Metropole Orchestra in 1980; he was involved in various tv-series (Music All In, Music Gallery) and thus made jazz accessible to a broad audience. The jazzy piece used on this compilation is based on a melody he composed for a commercial that has been used for over 30 years and is therefore known by all Dutch people. An up-tempo break of drums and bass comes after 30 seconds and makes this track stand out; it can compete with any Dennis Coffey break. Van Otterloo was born in 1941 and started as a musician in jazz combo's and cabaret, but decided at an early stage that composing, arranging and conducting was his thing. In '83 he went into surgery for a tumor with good result, but four years later the same disease killed him. He is remembered as an icon in Dutch (jazz) music. |
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Marva Hodge And The Moody Sec never made any albums, though several of their singles were pretty successful. Not only because of the fact that Red Bullet producer Jaap Eggermont (who afterwards had worldwide hits with his Stars On 45-concept) was behind them, but also because they were part of the very lively music scene of The Hague in the late sixties. Their rendition of the musical Hair-classic Let The Sun Shine In reached the Dutch Top Ten in 1969 and was Eggermont's very first production for Red Bullet. Our choice is the b-side of that single, a funky little instrumental entitled 00-43-GM, being the licence number of Red Bullet-boss Fred Haaijen's sports car, and recorded within one hour. The only reason for the lack of an album was lead singer Marva Hodge's sudden decision to return to her birthplace Ambon in 1970. Moody Sec-chief and guitarist Will Matla proceeded with his group Sympathy and later became a music teacher, writing several books on guitarplaying. He even started his own music school in The Hague and still performs today, with his Matla Trio. |
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Big John Russell has always been very much his own man in music and undoubtedly still is the heaviest man in the business, easily outweighing Barry White, Isaac Hayes or The Notorious BIG. John came from Surinam to The Netherlands in 1957 and started his career in 1962, recording singles for Philips, singing in discotheques and performing in clubs with his backing band, a band that had many different names throughout the years. In '64 he supported The Beatles during their debut in Holland, in '67 he co-wrote the score for a Dutch movie called Compromis together with Louis van Dijk, which was rewarded with a Silver Rose in Montreux a year later. John never stopped performing and recording, and also became a big name in Germany. From a string of singles made for Negram/EMI in the '70's the one from 1975 is still standing out; that's why Funky Amsterdam with it's striking opening (a very unfunky accordeon!) is not only on this compilation, but it was also completely rerecorded by John earlier this year. |
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Reality was started in 1970 in Amsterdam by eight musicians from Surinam, Curaçao and Aruba as a funk band, of which Frankie Douglas (with FD Foundation) and keyboardist Glenn Gaddum (with GS Productions) are still very active in music. Singer Tony Sherman (named Renold Shearman on this album) went back to Curaçao in the '80's. Their first untitled album was released that same year by Dureco on the Pink Elephant label and contains several strong instrumental funk jams, of which High Winds is chosen here, though Mack One and Gauchero are just as strong. Two years later, on their second album, the group was called Tony Sherman And Reality. In '73 Sherman went solo with another album, at which point the group Reality changed into Solat, another funky outfit, that only released a couple of singles and also recorded with Hans Dulfer as The Perikels. |
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The Dutch Rhythm Steel & Showband was a twelve-piece seventies party band, purely consisting of Surinam musicians. Since Surinam was still part of The Netherlands in those days, the name of the band wasn't wrong. Still, abroad they used the name The Original Trinidad Steel Band and released two albums as such (Beautiful Caribbean and Caribbean Steel & Show on Hansa, with Frank Farian as their producer), apart from their three Dutch albums. Their most interesting (read: rare groove) Dutch album is Funky Limbo (EMI, 1978), which was produced by Ernie Anches. Anches was also involved with various other funky Surinam acts, such as Oscar Harris, The Twinkle Stars and Thunderstorm. The preceding album Dance Dance Dance (EMI, 1976) made TDRSS a lot less rare, because it contained their international hit single January February. This brought them a very busy touring schedule. Today the band is still active and consists of quite a few sons of the original members. |
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Billy Jones was born in Denison, Texas on November 20, 1945. He sang gospel in church when he was eight and joined a local group called The Skylarks in his teens. Next he toured the USA as a member of the Army Air Defense Command Choral Group and as a GI in Germany he discovered Amsterdam, where he settled in late '68. He soon became a vocalist with Oscar Harris & The Twinkle Stars, where he stayed off and on until 1980. His solo career started in '70 with the single All My Brothers Are Clean, on Catfish, which reached the national charts, just like the follow-up Funky Monkey Monkey. He also charted with Oscar Harris three times that same year, ànd his debut album Love Is Gonna Rain On You came out; all in all a very successful year for Billy. In '71 he signed to Imperial, where his first single was Look Out (Here I Come), the funkiest he ever did. In '72 his second album followed on Blue Elephant, Birds Of The Sea, a soul masterpiece. He continued recording singles for several labels until '79 and joined the transition from Twinkle Stars to Thunderstorm. He died June 10, 1982 of cardiac arrest and is remembered as a unique soul singer with enough funky tunes to please both camps. |
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The Swinging Soul Machine was a soul group from Rotterdam that existed from 1967 until 1970. Their lead vocalist Iwan Spooky Groeneveld became famous on two very different occasions. First when the group had the brilliant idea to think of the name Spooky's Day Off for their instrumental single, which made it to the number 2 position in the Dutch charts in 1969. Secondly because Spooky reached that number 2 position again five years later as the male part of another act: the duo Spooky And Sue, with their single Swinging On A Star. 1969 also saw the release of the only album the Swinging Soul Machine ever made, entitled Through The Eye. Nowadays a real collector's item, especially because of the track It's An Ill Wind That Blows Nobody Any Good, that has already been used on various international rare groove compilation albums, because of the fact that Paul Vink's organ, Mac Sell's guitar, Wim Warby's saxes, Jan Warby's bass and Jan Bliek's drums interact in a unique way on this instrumental. |
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Hans van Hemert is known as one of the most successful Dutch pop producers ever, scoring hits with Marty, DC Lewis, American Gypsy, the Jay-Jays, Group 1850 and many, many others. He was born on April 7, 1945 and started his career in 1965 as inhouse producer of Phonogram's pop division. And thus became the youngest producer in the country. He produced groups like the legendary Q65, the Ro-d-ys, Zen, Big Wheel, Somerset, Sandra & Andres, Ramses Shaffy & Liesbeth List and many others. He also grew into the role of songwriter, of which Mouth & McNeal, Luv and others benefited heavily. His very first own composition was the one we used here: the funky theme of the TV-series De Glazen Stad, directed by his father Willy van Hemert, written in 1968. Illustrating Van Hemert's versatility is the fact, that he also wrote the track that can be regarded as the ultimate opposite of rare groove: the dreadful Elephant Song, written by Hans in 1975 as a special assignment from the Wild Life Fund, for Frank Sinatra, but an international number one hit for Kamahl later that same year. |