VA - Let's Get Swinging: Modern Jazz In Belgium 1950-1970 (2017)

A new, twenty-track compilation entitled 'Let's Get Swinging: Modern Jazz in Belgium 1950-1970', released 7th April via Sdban/N.E.W.S. focuses on a twenty-year period of modern jazz in the little kingdom, and features the leading players from that era including guitarist Philip Catherine, saxophonist Jack Sels, multi-instrumentalist Jacques Pelzer and vibraphone player, percussionist and vocalist 'Fats' Sadi Lallemand. Pre-1950s, Belgian jazz lovers had been starved of jazz music when it was banned from public life, going underground during the German occupation of WWII. However, jazz would soon go through a radical change when US jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk developed a new style called bebop or modern jazz. The big bands disappeared in favour of the small groups, the rhythms became more complex and improvisation was the new keyword. In Belgium, the epicentre of jazz shifted from Brussels to the industrial city of Liege in the east of the country. Inspired by the new sounds of Bird and Diz, a group of youngsters including Bobby Jaspar, Rene Thomas, Jacques Pelzer, 'Fats' Sadi Lallemand, Jack Sels and Francy Boland, joined each other in jam sessions and formed modern jazz combos. But the complexities of modern jazz made larger audiences turn their backs on this new form of jazz and with very few working opportunities for the modern jazzmen in Belgium, most moved abroad to persue a career. During the 50s, composer and pianist Francy Boland managed to distinguish himself in the United States, where he worked with the bands of Count Basie and Benny Goodman, and with jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams.