For many years, large orchestras performing Jazz were part of the cultural scene in European countries like the Netherlands and Germany as revenues collected from various commodities and income tax were used to subsidize such organizations.
Sadly, even before the Covid pandemic, performances by these organizations were being scaled back due to budgetary consideration and changes in popular music tastes.
Still it was fun while it lasted as is recounted in the following remembrances from his time with The Netherlands Metropole Orchestra from circa 1996 - 2002 that composer-arranger Bill Holman shared with Bill Dobbins in Conversations with Bill Holman: Thoughts and Recollections of a Jazz Master.
Bill Holman: Yeah. When I first started going over there, the Metropole Orchestra had a TV show every Saturday night.
Bill Dobbins: Yeah. I thought that one of the interesting things about the concert schedule of the Metropole Orchestra is that they have their concerts on Sunday afternoon at 2 PM, so that all the musicians in town can come to the concerts if they want to. They're usually not working on Sunday afternoon.
The Netherlands Metropole Orchestra
B. D. Another important haven of opportunity for jazz writers over the last thirty years or so has been the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra, based in Hilversum. [ This unique orchestra has an instrumentation of 2 flutes, 1 oboe/English horn, 1 French horn, 5 saxes, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone, guitar, piano, bass, drums, 2 percussion, harp and a string section of twenty-two players.]
Could you talk about the circumstances that led to your first opportunity to write for them?
B. H. Well, I had been hearing the group for years, when they were primarily backing up soloists. I heard a lot of good things about them from Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and a lot of other people. Rob Pronk did many of the arrangements, and he really had the orchestra down in terms of writing for that instrumentation.
And then, Frits Bayens [producer/manager for the orchestra] showed up out here one day, called, and said, "Come on over and do something with us." He was talking about my writing for them, and I had always avoided it because they paid so little for music. But he said, "Well, things are changing. You should give it a try." So I asked him what I could expect as a fee. He made me an offer and I said, "Well, I think I could accept that."
So he went back to Europe and then called a while later, saying that he wanted me to write a long piece. So I thought, "Well, that sounds great, to write a long original piece and get paid well for it." So I did it. I was a little apprehensive about conducting. But I'd been apprehensive about that before, so I didn't let it stop me. So I went over and met everybody. The social atmosphere is great. Everyone was very helpful, including the string players, which was very rare. Both (Laugh.)
B. H. And that's especially the case when you're asking them to play things that might not be normal for them.
B. D. Sure. What was that first piece?
B. H. Beats me. Both (Laugh.)
B. D. Do you remember what year it was?
B. H. I can't remember. The thing I did with Lee [Konitz] was around '97, so it must have been early or mid-'90s.
B. D. Well I think Issues and Answers was recorded in '91. [Actually, 1996]
B. H. That piece may have been earlier because, several years before all this, a couple of guys from the Metropole Orchestra had come over. They were looking for new writers to do things, and they are the ones who had me do Issues and Answers. This was some time before my contact with Frits. [Issues and Answers was also the name of a popular political talk show on U.S. national TV at the time the piece was written. The longer Holman piece in question was a four-movement work entitled Further Adventures, which was also the title of a Bill Holman CD with the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra, released in 1997].
B. D. So the piece Frits commissioned you to do was a longer piece, maybe twenty-five to thirty minutes?
B. H. Yeah, it was over thirty minutes. I can remember the second piece. They had me back the next year to do a similar thing, and I wrote a long piece called Pomona.
B. D. Oh, Yeah. You sent me a CD of that, and I enjoyed it immensely.
B. H. They didn't know that it was the name of a town, so I could get away with it over there.
Both (Laugh.)
B. H. It just sounds like a nice word.
B.D. Exactly.
B. H. I hear those things back now, and I can see a lot of bad things that I didn't see then, but I was glad to have a chance to do them. I didn't have enough writing techniques to do different things for a piece of that length. The thing with Lee came off better, because a lot of the load was on him. It's like writing for a singer. It takes some of the heat off of you. But these other pieces were strictly for the orchestra and the soloists of the orchestra, and they came off OK. The band seemed to like them. I was a lousy conductor. I'm really happy that they had that good attitude, so they could make up for my conducting deficiencies. So we managed to get through everything without any trouble. They had a drummer, Cees Kronenberg, who was great for the tempo changes and things like that. I did another project with Bob Malach, and that came off well. The one with Lee was after that, and then there was one with Pete Christlieb. I think that was it.
Then somebody realized that they couldn't afford to go on like this, and that they had to go back to doing some stuff with some mass appeal. So I never went back. (Laughs.)
B. D. From what I understand, they're doing more and more pop-oriented projects and less and less jazz things. The programs usually feature vocalists, and have themes centered around popular films or other hooks that offer more popular appeal. And they've had two rhythm sections for quite a few years, one with jazz players and one with players who use electric instruments and are more oriented toward popular idioms. It's unfortunate, but everything seems to be going more and more wherever the big money leads.
B. H. Yeah. There have been several attempts already to cut down the size or do away with the orchestra, but they've managed to keep it going so far. But even when I was going over, and they had a more daring approach, they were getting yelled at by the budget people.
When I first went over there I worked with The Skymasters [Dutch Big Band in existence from 1946-1997.]. Have you ever heard about them?
B. D. I heard about them after being in Cologne for a while, but that group was no longer working then. They had quite a reputation. I should have tracked down some recordings, but I never got around to it.
B. H. Yeah, they finally folded up. But it was really a nice band. They had some great players, Ferdinand Povel, Ack van Rooyen, and some others.
This feature is a mishmash [I've always wanted to use that word in something I wrote for the blog].
It's compilation of a number of earlier blog pieces about Holland's Metropole Orchestra and those who have composed and arranged and conducted it along with some additional information about it's longest serving mentor in this regard - Rob Pronk.
Although Rob passed away in 2012 at the age of 84, the Metropole Orkest continues today but in less robust form than when it was under his tutelage from 1975-96. Not surprisingly, as a sign of the times, the orchestra performs fewer concerts and there is much less emphasis on Jazz.
Thanks to a reminder from a Jazz buddy of Rob's special place in the Metropole's pantheon of composer-arranger-conductors, I thought it appropriate to add more biographical information about Maestro Pronk to form a new introduction for a re-posting of these earlier features on the orchestra.
I've also taken the liberty to add more videos at the conclusion of this collection of writings about the orchestra featuring guest artists performing Rob's arrangements to give you a sampling of his work.
Rob Pronk was of Indonesian origin. At the time of his birth in 1925, there was no independent country of Indonesia as the islands which form this archipelago were part of the Dutch East Indies. His father was a railway engineer. As a child he was fascinated by jazz music when he heard Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" on the radio (Ellington also remained his role model later). He received his first piano lessons at the age of eight. In his early teens, Rob learned some basic arranging skills from Jerry van Rooyen, whom he had already met when he was on the road in the Dutch East Indies for troop support, but he was largely self-taught and learned through trial and error, much like the early years of one of his arranging idols - Gil Evans. In 1947 he went to Holland with his brother Ruud (a drummer), where he studied economics in Rotterdam and earned a Bachelor's degree, largely to please his parents. But he then decided to "follow his heart" and attend the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied, trumpet, piano and music theory In 1949 he visited New York with the brothers Jerry and Ack van Rooyen , with whom he continued to play in a group he formed called the "Rob Pronk Boptet." In 1951 his boptet was temporarily fully integrated into the orchestra of Ernst van't Hoff, with whom he went on tour in Spain. Throughout the 1950's he worked with a number of Scandinavian and Northern European musicians, including the baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin, both on trumpet and as a small group arranger. At the end of the 1950's, he was hired to play trumpet in the Kurt Edelhagen orchestra, where he also became one of the main arrangers (from 1958). He also arranged for Benny Carter during one of the Jazz icons European tours and also studied briefly with him. Beginning in the late 1960's his big break came when he was hired as an arranger with the Metropole Orchestra, for which he wrote over 1200 arrangements in over 30 years. From 1975 to 1996 he was often a guest conductor of the Metropole Orchestra. In addition to Duke Ellinton and Gil Evans, Rob credits his influences as Billy May, Bill Holman, Al Cohn, and Quincy Jones. Rob Pronk also taught arrangement and composition at the Rotterdam Conservatory for many years.
On a personal note, I came of age in the Hollywood music world when the era of resident orchestras as maintained by the movie studios was coming to an end, although a number of local municipalities sponsored bands for their summer concerts series, and there were many classical orchestras in the area, too. But this kind of “legit” work never appealed to me [sitting around for what seemed like hours, counting 142 measures of “rest” and then picking up two huge, heavy cymbals to strike them together once before sitting down again to count more measures of rest was not my idea of playing music].
Sometimes, the chance to pick-up a few schimolies by riding a bus with a big band came my way, but the music was generally uninspiring and the downside was being out-of-town when the studio contractors called, thus losing your place in the hierarchy.
Imagine my surprise then when I learned that many cities in Europe kept radio orchestras on staff that were supported by various state governments. Can you picture it – being on salary with benefits and showing up for work each day to play Jazz on a regular basis – and this is your “day gig?!” Heck, they even got paid for rehearsals [and the music obviously sounded much because of this extra time to learn it].
Most of the major European countries, but especially Germany and Holland, maintained such aggregations who in turn supplied a steady stream of music for broadcast over radio and television as well as a fairly active performance schedule at some of these countries most renown concert halls.
Holland, a nation of only around sixteen million people, provides government support for two, such orchestras – The Metropole and The Concertgebouw – the former playing at concert venues throughout The Netherlands while the latter performs primarily at its namesake auditorium in Amsterdam.
Unfortunately, for those of us without ready access to Holland, until the advent of concerts streamed via the internet, the music of these orchestras was not widely heard outside The Netherlands.
To compound matters, since it lost its recording contracts with the Koch and Mons record labels, commercial CDs by The Metropole Orchestra are only rarely available and the Concertgebouw Jazz Orchestra, for the most part, has underwritten the issuance of its own recordings during its comparatively briefer existence.
However , thanks to the munificence of a Dutch internet Jazz buddy, as well as, one in southern Oregon, I have been a regular “visitor” to most of the concerts performed by these orchestras over the past ten [10] years or so.
Listening to the way in which the string section of Holland’s magnificent Metropole Orchestra plays Jazz phrasing, one wishes for a time machine so that Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown could be re-make their famous “with strings” albums and benefit from a string section that knows how to play Jazz.
The reasons why The Metropole Orchestra are so adept at Jazz phrasing are explained in the following article about the orchestra, its history and evolution by the noted Jazz author, Mike Hennessey.
[Incidentally, when the string section is included, it is referred to as The Metropole Orchestra and sans strings it is The Metropole Orchestra Big Band.]
Also integrated in this piece for JazzProfiles’ readers is an overview of the orchestra and its origins and development as excerpted from the orchestra’s own website
The High-Flying Dutchmen - Jazz Now, July 2004 issue
Mike Hennessey spotlights the unique Metropole Orchestra
“The Metropole Orchestra was founded in 1945 by the Dutch Radio Foundation. It came into being because, after the Second World War, Holland's newly re-established public radio network needed an ensemble capable of producing high quality music programmes covering every genre of light music.
Dolf van der Linden was appointed chief conductor and was given the task of recruiting musicians for the orchestra. He began by contacting top class Dutch musicians who were playing in orchestras all over Europe and inviting them to return to Holland to join the new ensemble.
The son of a music dealer who owned several musical instrument shops, van der Linden took violin and music theory lessons from his father, who was an excellent player, and later studied composition at a music academy. When he was 16, he took a job as a theatre organist and, from 1936 to 1939, he worked regularly as an arranger for various radio orchestras. It was after the war that he concentrated on conducting.
The 17-member Metropole Orchestra made its début on November 25, 1945 and has since won international acclaim as a major institution of the European music community.
There is no other ensemble like it anywhere in the world.
The orchestra today has 52 full time members, all on regular salary with full social security and pension rights. It plays an average of 40 concerts a year and spends about eight weeks a year doing studio productions. It is financed by the Dutch government and has an annual budget of 5.5 million euros.
Dolf van der Linden was chief conductor for three and a half decades, up to his retirement in 1980, and he developed the ensemble into an orchestra which included a full symphonic string section and a conventional big band line-up.
The orchestra rapidly earned a glowing reputation throughout Europe, first through radio and television productions initiated by the European Broadcasting Union, then later through live performances in various countries. To date, the Metropole Orchestra has performed in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Norway, Greece and the United States.
Over the years, the orchestra has worked with a glittering array of world-class vocalists and instrumentalists from the worlds of opera, operetta, musicals, Jazz, rock and pop. But perhaps Dolf van der Linden's greatest achievement was that, in spite of playing in a multitude of musical styles and in constantly changing circumstances, particularly with regard to technical developments, the orchestra always maintained a strong identity of its own.
When van der Linden retired in 1980, he was succeeded by Rogier van Otterloo, the son of the celebrated conductor, Willem van Otterloo. He rapidly brought the orchestra up to speed with the newest developments in music and adopted a double rhythm section policy, one for Jazz and the more traditional forms of light music and one for pop and rock music.
Rogier van Otterloo's involvement with the orchestra came to an untimely end with his death in 1988 at the age of 46. It took a number of years to find a worthy successor and it was in 1991 that Dick Bakker, already a successful composer/arranger, was appointed chief conductor and artistic director.
Bakker studied music at the Hilversum Conservatory and also qualified as a professional sound technician. He has won many international awards and it was with his song, "Ding-a-Dong", that Teach-In won the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest. Since 1982 he has expanded his European activities, composing and arranging music for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, among others.
The brilliant Dutch composer and arranger, Rob Pronk, was the Metropole's guest conductor for 21 years the current principal guest conductor is the Grammy Award-winning Vince Mendoza.
The roll call of artists who have appeared with the Metropole Orchestra over the years is staggering and richly diverse. It includes Charles Aznavour, Burt Bacharach, Kenny Barron, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett, Michael and Randy Brecker, Ray Brown, Joe Cocker, Natalie Cole, Pete and Conte Candoli, Eddie Daniels, Manu Dibango, CÈline Dion, George Duke, Bill Evans, Clare Fischer, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Flanagan, Art Garfunkel,
Gloria Gaynor, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard, Hank Jones, the King's Singers, Lee Konitz, Hubert Laws, Joe Lovano, Vera Lynn, Bob Malach. Andy Martin, Bob Mintzer, Mark Murphy, Peter Nero, the New York Voices, Bill Perkins, Oscar Peterson, Frank Rosolino, Zoot Sims, the Supremes, the Swingle Singers, Lew Tabackin, Clark Terry, Toots Thielemans, Mel Tormé, Sarah Vaughan, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Werner, Andy Williams, Nancy Wilson and the Yellowjackets.
Arrangers and composers who have contributed scores to the Metropole's book include Bob Brookmeyer, John Clayton, Steve Gray, Peter Herbolzheimer, Bill Holman, Chuck Israels, Jim McNeely, Vince Mendoza and Rob Pronk.
The Orchestra today has its own recording studio with the control room built by NOB Audio and the control room acoustics designed by the British company, Recording Architecture. Recordings are made and mixed using a Neve VR Legend 60-channel console and a protools mix cube. In addition, there is a hard disc editing system, the full range of state-of-the-art out-board gear and custom-made ATC monitoring facilities. The whole set-up is designed for Dolby Surround post-production and has projection systems installed for the recording and editing of film and television scores.
For live recordings the orchestra uses Audio 1, a mobile studio with separate recording and machine rooms, which is equipped with a first class SSL console, plus state-of-the-art microphones, outboard-gear and monitoring facilities.
Recordings by the Metropole Orchestra are not that easy to come by, but amazon.co.uk currently has 21 releases listed on its website, including albums featuring such guest soloists as Claudio Roditi, Swiss saxophonist George Robert, German saxophonist Peter Weniger, trombonist Andy Martin, bassist Chuck Israels, Clark Terry, Dee Daniels, Bill Perkins, Jiggs Whigham and Lew Tabackin.”
The Metropole Orchestra is the world's largest professional pop and jazz orchestra. Renowned for its wide-ranging abilities, the Metropole Orchestra performs anything from chansons to World-music, film-scores, Rock- or Pop-tunes as well as high-octane jazz. The orchestra is a regular feature at the North Sea Jazz festival and the yearly Holland Festival along with countless TV and radio programs broadcast to millions. The ever-growing Dutch film and television industry relies heavily on the Metropole Orchestra for its film scores. Since 2005 the Metropole is under the baton of its Chief, four-time Grammy Award winner Vince Mendoza, and can be seen frequenting the concert stage, in festivals and on recordings in the Netherlands as well as internationally.
A sampling of the performers who have shared the stage with the Metropole Orchestra underscores the ensemble’s quality and flexibility to cover a wide range of genres: Oleta Adams, Vicente Amigo, Antony & The Johnsons, Within Temptation, Andrea Bocelli, Joe Cocker, Elvis Costello, Eddie Daniels, Brian Eno, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Hank Jones, Chaka Khan, Pat Metheny, Ivan Lins, Mike Patton, Paquito D’Rivera, John Scofield, The Swingle Singers, Jean ‘Toots’ Thielemans, Gino Vannelli, Steve Vai, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Dino Saluzzi, Trijntje Oosterhuis, the legendary Turkish singer Sezen Aksu and Fado-queen Mariza, just to name a few.
The CD recording Ivan Lins &The Metropole Orchestra with the Brasilian singer/songwriter Ivan Lins, released in August 2009, received a Latin Grammy for 'Best Brasilian Album'.
1945-1980
The Metropole Orchestra was popular right from its inception in 1945 by founder Dolf van der Linden, who led the group from one success to another. When van der Linden formed the group shortly after the Second World War, his mandate was to create an ensemble with the ability to produce high level performances of pop and jazz music for public radio. He traveled extensively throughout Europe to find the right mix of musicians for his orchestra. His refreshing and challenging musical ideas spoke directly to a public starved for a new musical culture after years of war. Dolf van der Linden directed the orchestra for 35 years. Radio, and in later years television broadcasts helped spread the orchestra’s fame even further. International tours and pan-European broadcasting (EBU) brought the Metropole’s musical message to countless listeners all over the world
Perhaps the greatest compliment to the legacy of Dolf van der Linden is that the Metropole Orchestra has maintained its own unique musical personality and still continues to develop within an increasing variety of musical styles and technical innovations.
1980-1991
The energetic, young Rogier van Otterloo, the son of the famed classical maestro Willem van Otterloo, followed van der Linden as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor. Van Otterloo’s enthusiasm was contagious and the orchestra developed into a first-class ensemble with the flexibility to work in the newest genres in light music, from rock 'n roll onwards. The Metropole Orchestra was expanded to include a double rhythm section, one for pop-music, the other for jazz- and World-music. Van Otterloo developed into a major figure as composer and arranger. Soloists from genres ranging from American top jazz stars to Opera divas joined forces with the Metropole Orchestra. The orchestra contributed greatly to the growing European jazz scene.
1991 and beyond
Dick Bakker’s arrival to the Metropole brought a new life to the Metropole orchestra. The group made countless appearances in large-scale television productions at home and abroad and a selection of memorable performances including the Acropolis concert with George Dalaras and Mikis Theodorakis in Greece, and performances at Amsterdam’s rock temple, Paradiso. At the same time, The orchestra moved to a new, modern studio and worked steadily on recordings for radio, television, cds and film soundtracks.
In 1995 Vince Mendoza began his relationship with the orchestra primarily in the area of jazz. The relationship blossomed with the music that he wrote for the orchestra as well as the concerts and recordings featuring many of the top Jazz and Pop soloists in the world. During this time a new fleet of arrangers and composers joined the ranks to create the contemporary sound of the orchestra that you know today. In 2005 Mendoza became the chief conductor and continues to maintain the high level of performances that the public has grown to expect from the orchestra. Today the Metropole is active with more than 40 concerts a season on concert stages all over the Netherlands and internationally. In 2013 the dynamic young British conductor Jules Buckley was appointed as the Metropole Orkest’s newest chief conductor, after having been guest conductor since 2008.
Composer, orchestrator and conductor Jules Buckley is musical pioneer who pushes the boundaries of contemporary genres. In 2004 he co-founded the Heritage Orchestra, a flexible chamber ensemble, dedicated to performing new music with a daring approach to crossing and linking musical genres. As the principal guest conductor of the Metropole Orkest in recent years, Jules has led projects with Snarky Puppy, Laura Mvula, Gregory Porter, Tori Amos, Markus Stockhausen, Michael Kiwanuka, Jonathan Jeremiah and UK house music duo Basement Jaxx.
Ever the musical agitator, Buckley’s work has led to collaborations, recordings and live projects with the likes of Massive Attack, Arctic Monkeys, John Cale, Emeli Sandé, Cinematic Orchestra, Jamie Cullum, Beardyman and Dizzy Rascal. This year, he has worked with the WDR Big Band, Jose James and the Royal Concertgebouworkest, Patrick Watson and L’Orchestre Nationale d’ile de France, and arranged and conducted Caro Emerald’s number one album “The Shocking Miss Emerald”. Other recent highlights include work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chilly Gonzales, as well as various performances of the hugely successful Urban Classic project, including a BBC Radio 3 Prom, where he conducted the BBC SO alongside some of the leading lights of the British urban music scene including Laura Mvula, Maverick Sabre, Jacob Banks, Wretch 32, N-Dubz’ Fazer and Lady Leshurr.
INTERNATIONAL SOLOISTS
The Metropole Orchestra prides itself on the glittering array of great artists it has worked with. In alphabetical order, the lineup of stars: Oleta Adams, Sezen Aksu, Antony & The Johnsons, Charles Aznavour, Burt Bacharach, Victor Bailey, Kenny Barron, Shirley Bassey, Jeff Beal, Jim Beard, Tony Bennett, Andrea Bocelli, Terry Bozzio, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Ray Brown, Patrick Bruel, John Cale, Amit Chatterjee, Chico Cesar, Joe Cocker, Natalie Cole, Pete and Conte Condoli, Elvis Costello, The Creatures, Pete Christlieb, Ronnie Cuber, Eddie Daniels, Manu Dibango, Céline Dion, Eva de Dios, George Duke, Brian Eno, Sertab Erener, Peter Erskine, Bill Evans, Clare Fischer, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Flanagan, Bruce Fowler, Art Garfunkel, Gloria Gaynor, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Tom Harrel, Conrad Herwig, Roger Hodgson, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard, Al Jarreau, Ingrid Jensen, Hank Jones, Junkie XL, Mike Keneally, Nancy King, The King's Singers, Lee Konitz, K's Choice, Hubert Laws, Ivan Lins, Joe Lovano, Vera Lynn, Kevin Mahagony, Bob Malach, Mariza, Andy Martin, Nancy Marano, Dina Medina, Daniel Mendez, Pat Metheny, Bob Mintzer, Mark Murphy, Andy Narell, Daniel Navarro, Silje Nergaard, Peter Nero, Ed Neumeister, The New York Voices, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Alan Parsons, Mike Patton, Bill Perkins, Oscar Peterson, Fabia Rebodao, Diane Reeves, Paquito D’Rivera, Frank Rosselino, John Scofield, Zoot Sims, Sister Sledge, Mike Stern, The Supremes, The Swingle Singers, Lew Tabackin, Within Temptation, Clark Terry, Jean 'Toots' Thielemans, Tulug Tirpan, Mel Tormé, Rafael de Utrera, Steve Vai, Gino Vannelli, Sarah Vaughan, Harvey Wainapel, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Werner, Andy Williams, Nancy Wilson, The Yellowjackets and Karim Ziad.
INTERNATIONAL COMPOSERS/ARRANGERS/CONDUCTORS
Michael Abene, John Adams, Manny Albam, Jeff Beal, Bob Brookmeyer, Dori Caymmi, John Clayton, Michel Colombier, Bill Dobbins, Clare Fisher, Steve Gray, Tom Harrell, Peter Herbolzheimer, Bill Holman, Chuck Israels, Jim McNeely, Vince Mendoza, Bob Mintzer, Ennio Morricone, Ed Neumeister, Chuck Owen, Gunther Schuller and Maria Schneider. The music on the following video is from an April 11, 2003 concert entitled "Traces of Brass: Traveling from Traditional to Contemporary Music." The conductor is Vince Mendoza. I do not have factual information to this effect, but I'm assuming that Vince also did the arrangements for the music in this program.
The music on the last three videos is from a 75th birthday concert which the Metropole gave for Rob. The birthday broadcast took place on June 1, 2003 at the Broadcast Music Center in Hilversum, The Netherlands. It was re-broadcast on February 11, 2008 on NPS Radio 6 [The Netherlands] as part of the program - “In Concert: The Bands.”
Bassist, composer, arranger John Clayton was flown in from the United States to direct The Metropole Orchestra as were tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb and trombonist Andy Martin as principal soloists
A total of seventeen of Rob’s charts [arrangements] were performed that evening for this once-in-a-lifetime concert.
The first tune is Peace by Horace Silver which features the superb trombonist and bass trumpeter, Bart van Lier.
The second tune highlights Pete Christlieb on tenor sax performing Billy Strayhorn’s Raincheck.
The third song is a stunning arrangement of Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby with Arlia de Ruiter as the violin soloist.
“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.
He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.”
- Jeroen de Valk, Jazz author and critic
Although, the general focus of most of the postings to JazzProfiles is about Jazz musicians and Jazz styles, there are occasions in which we like to spend time with Jazz interpretations of our favorite tunes.
Or to put it another way, no tunes, no Jazz for as the late bassist Charles Mingus stated: “You’ve got to improvise on something.”
As Charles implies it’s all intertwined as one thing leads to another and I generally find myself recounting who the Jazz musician or Jazz group is that’s performed one of my favorite tunes.
Or to rework the tile of this piece a little, Alone But Together; you really can’t separate the Jazz musician from his/her music.
Which brings me to a tune that has always fascinated me - Alone Together.
These excerpts from Ted Gioia’s continually fascinating The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire go a long way toward explaining why.
“Alone Together - Composed by Arthur Schwartz, with lyrics by Howard Dietz
“At 14, Arthur Schwartz played piano accompaniment to silent films in his native Brooklyn, and from an early age he showed a knack for writing his own songs. At his father's urging, though, Schwartz put music on the back burner and pursued a career in law. With degrees from NYU and Columbia in hand, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1924, and practiced law for four years before turning his back on the legal profession to work full-time as a songwriter. Around that same time Schwartz met up with lyricist Howard Dietz, another Columbia University alum (where Dietz had been a classmate of Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein), and the following year they launched their first Broadway production, the successful revue The Little Show. ...
Alone Together made its debut in the 1932 show Flying Colors, which closed as a financial failure after 188 performances, ...The song fared better than the show, however, and Leo Reisman enjoyed a top 10 hit with his recording that same year.
"Alone Together" has an unusual form, with a 14-bar A theme that resolves surprisingly in the tonic major, but in the last restatement is truncated to 12 bars that conclude in the minor. The form can confuse the uninitiated, and don't be surprised if you hear the pianist at the cocktail bar try to squeeze "Alone Together" into a standard 32-bar AABA form. Yet I suspect that the very peculiarities in the composition, especially the major-minor ambiguity, account for much of the appeal to improvisers.
Artie Shaw played the key role in establishing "Alone Together" as a jazz standard, recording it with his band in 1939, … When Dizzy Gillespie recorded "Alone Together" in 1950, he followed the Shaw playbook with a somber rendition over string accompaniment. Miles Davis adopted a far more modernistic approach in his 1955 recording, with the countermelodies and shifting rhythms bearing more the stamp of Charles Mingus (who was bassist on this date) than the trumpeter.
The personality of this song would change gradually over the years, as it lost its exotic, mood music origins and emerged as a dark, minor-key song in a straight swing rhythm. In the right arrangement, "Alone Together" can sound like a hard bop chart written for a Blue Note session. In fact, given the dark, brooding quality of the tune, I'm surprised it didn't show up on more Blue Note dates, but when it did (as on Stanley Turrentine's 1966 session with McCoy Tyner for the Easy Walker date), it fit perfectly with the grit and groove of the proceedings. Sonny Rollins takes a similar tack on his 1958 performance for the Contemporary label [Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders].
The composition is still typically performed at a medium tempo, not much different from what Leo Reisman offered back in 1932 — although usually more medium-fast than medium-slow nowadays. But fast, aggressive versions are increasingly common —.”
The version of Alone Together that prompted the development of this feature is the one that Dutch Jazz pianist Rein de Graaff recorded on October 3, 1992 in Hilversum, The Netherlands with The Metropole Orchestra conducted by the renown Rob Pronk.
You can located in it on the Timeless CD Nostalgia [SJP 429] which is a compilation CD made up of five tracks with Rein performing with the Metropole in 1992, two tracks of Rein performing with Barry Harris in Groningen, Holland in 1991 with a rhythm section of Koos Serierse on bass and Eric Ineke on drums and four tracks recorded in 1994 in Monster Holland, with alto saxophonists Gary Foster and Marco Kegel and Rein, Koos and Eric.
Thanks to some visits together during his recent trips to the United States, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Rein somewhat. In conversation - by the way, his English is better than mine, - he is soft-spoken, extremely polite and mild-mannered. He loves “a piece of bread” with all manner of food and in a conversation over a meal he is relaxed, unassuming and an attentive listener; although I suspect that on the subject of most things to do with bebop, he could finish my sentences for me, but demurrers [did I mention that he was polite?].
But all of that vanishes when he sits down at a piano keyboard and becomes a take-no-prisoners, monster improviser who is capable of unfurling line after line of dotted eighth note, syncopated melodies that are loaded with bebop licks that you’ve heard before, but never quite combined in this manner. He becomes an original by the way in which he weaves together the unoriginal as he tries to get as close as possible to the nirvana of interlacing chorus after chorus of uninterrupted improvisations [what Jazz musicians referred to as “lines”]. Sometimes, ideas seem to come to him so fast and furious that he can barely put them together before moving on to the next set of musical thoughts or suggestions. It’s like he’s managed to memorize every piece of bebop ever played in the past, deconstruct them and put them together in a new and different way - instantaneously.
And he doesn’t rush - he pushes the time because he plays ahead of the beat - but he doesn’t rush.
In listening to a lot of Rein’s recordings lately [he’s sending me more!!] - I always suspected that one of the keys to his success as an improvisor was his ability to chose the right tempo to play the tunes he favors.
And what do you know, he confirmed this in a recent conversation about his playing on the tune Flamingo on a CD that he along with Marius Beets [pronounced Bates in English] on bass and Eric Ineke on drums made with tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton. [You can find this track in a video montage at the end of this piece.]
I was sharing with him how the sequence of choruses he plays on this eleven [11] minute track had literally reduced me to giggles they were so good when he blurted out - “It’s the tempo!”
Bingo! - the implication being that the tempo was just right in leaving him time to think and connect one well-constructed, improvised line [melody] with the next.
Of course, notwithstanding his incredible talent, I imagine it helps to have been doing this for 50 years!!
Jeroen de Valk who recently published a revised and expanded biography of trumpeter Chet Baker wrote these insert notes for the Nostalgia CD.
“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.
He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.
The most astonishing aspect of Rein's artistry is his understanding of the bebop language. He is almost entirely self-taught as a pianist and has been living most of his life in a small town in the north of the Netherlands. But when he visited New York for the first time as a young man, he felt at home right away. At a jam session in Harlem, a big fat mamma from this black neighbourhood hugged him warmly, with tears in her eyes. "You sound like a black man!", she shouted. This was obviously the highest praise that could possibly be bestowed on Rein.
Although it may sound weird, it is perhaps his jazz fan status that makes him sound so consistently inspired and professional. He makes music because he loves to do it and for no other reason. Music is for him, to quote Zoot Sims, "serious fun". He always plays with at least a hundred per cent dedication.
On this record, you hear what Rein does: playing bebop piano. While listening to the duo-tracks with Rein's favourite pianist, bebop master Barry Harris, you will notice how much they sound alike. Their solos are characterized by clarity; each phrase is a small melody with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Rein plays the first seven choruses in Au Privave, Barry the next five. Then they alternate eight choruses, followed by 'fours' until the last theme. In the next tune, you hear
Rein plays Nostalgia and Barry Casbah, two tunes based on the chords of Out of Nowhere. Barry plays two choruses, Rein the next two. Then they take half a chorus each, they alternate 'eights' for one chorus, followed by a chorus of 'fours'.
Another passion of Rein's is the musical world of Lennie Tristano, the legendary pianist, composer and guru of the cool school who died in 1978 at the age of 59. In four tracks, he plays with two alto saxophonists who know a thing or two about Tristano's concept: Gary Foster from LA (right channel) and Marco Kegel, a 22-year-old from Holland. Their collective improvisations will remind you of Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, Tristano's great saxophone team.
As usual, the themes are complicated lines, based on standards. Tristano used to say: "That's our link to the people." Ablution is All the Things You Are.Lennie's Pennies is Pennies from Heaven (in a minor key, for a change), Dreamstepper is You Stepped out of a Dream and Subconscious-Lee is What Is this Thing Called Love. The rhythm section is once again Koos Serierse (bass) and Eric Ineke (drums). They have been working with Rein for almost twenty years.
In the first five tracks. Rein is featured soloist with the Metropole Orchestra. The arrangements, written by Dolf de Vries (Alone Together), Rob Pronk (How High the Moon, I Cover the Waterfront), Henk Meutgeert (Afternoon in Paris} and Lex Jasper (Cherokee), are just right for this combination: relaxed and inspiring. They give the rhythm section room to swing, allow the horns and strings to phrase as one man, and Rein to improvise freely at great length.
Rein sounds as if he has been working with these experienced studio musicians for a hundred years. Listen to him playing bebop piano. He is brilliant.”
