Keep (it) Swinging: Frits Landesbergen, vibraphone player, live in Porgy en Bess

Frits Landesbergen, vibrafonist, speelt in Porgy en Bess ( Nederlands) Frits Landesbergen, vibraphone player, live in Porgy en Bess ( English )

Finally, after 20 years, live in Terneuzen.
FRITS LANDESBERGEN, VIBRAPHONE PLAYER, LIVE IN PORGY EN BESS
Hans Koert

Frits Landesbergen performed with his quartet at the Porgy en Bess Jazz Club in Terneuzen in the southwest part of The Netherlands. More then twenty years ago he was unable to join a New Year concert at this club with the Trio Pim Jacobs, due to sever winter conditions. With Ik kreeg mijn auto met geen mogelijkheid de dijk op ( = It was impossible to get my car at the top of the dike) he refered to the bad weather conditions. Ik ben blij dat ik eindelijk een keer hier kan spelen (= I'm happy to play here today - finally.....) , he told the audience.- Last week I accompanied Monty Alexander and he prided the club's warm atmosphere!

Frits Landesbergen in Porgy en Bess ( March 2010) ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

Frits Landesbergen brought his quartet featuring guitar player Martijn Van Iterson, bass player Frans Van Geest and drummer Dré Pallemaerts ( who had brought his son - learn young learn fast). Frits Landesbergen, not to mixed up with his uncle "Frits" (1932), also a vibes player ( and pianist), founder of the Frits Landesbergen Big Band, was born in 1961 in Voorschoten and plays the vibes and drums. He won various prestigious Dutch jazz awards like the Wessel Ilcken Award, the Pall Mall Swing prize and accompanies musicians like Monty Alexander, Madeline Bell, Louis Van Dyke, The Rosenberg Trio and Joke Bruys. Frits Landesbergen Quartet: f.l.t.r. Martijn van Iterson - Frits Landesbergen - Dré Pallemaerts - Frans van Geest. ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)
Martijn Van Iterson is one of the best Dutch jazz guitar players and won the Bird Award, a North Sea Jazz Festival prize. Both Frans Van Geest and Dré Pallemaerts, the latter is from Malines, Belgium, are a solid rhythm section. Although Frits suggested during the concert, that Dré never studied the drums, I know that he learned to play drums in the Antwerp Music Academy and from none other then Jeff Hamilton in the States. Frans Van Geest is, like Martijn Van Iterson a regular member of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw.

Martijn van Iterson ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)
When Frits wanted his own quartet a few years ago, he asked these friends to join - colleagues he appreciated for the way they could improvise music.

The quartet started its first set with a tune based on the 1934 standard You And The Night And The Music, entitled And The Blues, followed by Wiener Blues in which Martijn Van Iterson referred, in his solo in a subtle way to the Hanna and Barbera Flintstone theme. In Mister R. Frits remembered his friend Eric M. who recently passed away. The tune Up and Down composed by Frits Landesbergen and Jeroen De Rijk, likely in an elevator Frans noted with some sense of humor, concluded the first set; just in time for Dré's son as the batteries of his portable DVD-player seem to exhausted.

Frans Van Geest ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)

The second set opened with the Chick Corea tune Summer Night which he played during the 1980s with his Akoustic Band, originally a waltz, but transformed by Frits and his men into common 4/4 time. With the Kees Hoogendijk Blues the quartet showed that it isn't affraid for odd meters in music: the 5/4. Ik heb er wel eens mensen op zien dansen ... (= I have seen people trying to dance on it ....) Frits warned on forehand, niet doen dus (= don't do it ). During Frits solo on the vibes, he referred to one of the best known themes in 5/4 meter: Brubeck's Take Five.

Martijn Van Iterson ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)
The tune, Mr. T, renamed as the Doelen Blues, is to be found on one of Frits Landesbergen's latest albums, De Doelen Session, like most tunes performed during this concert. In I Fall In Love Too Easily Martijn Van Iterson impressed and so did Frans Van Geest with Frits in a duet - one of the highlights of the evening. The tune Giant Steps Blues refers to Coltrane's most famous tune: Het heet Giant Steps Blues omdat het voor de kenners, accoorden bevat uit Coltrane's Giant Steps .... en dat geldt natuurlijk ook voor de niet-kenners) (= It's entitled Giant Steps Blues because it contains, for the experts, elements from Coltrane's Giant Steps - and also for the non-experts of course .......) In the mean time the batteries of the DVD-player had run dry .... so time for the final tune !!

Dré Pallemaerts ( photo copurtesy: Hans Koert)
The concert was finished with Sweet Georgia Brown, a tribute to the father of the vibraphone, Lionel Hampton, who recorded this tune as a member of the 1938 Benny Goodman Quartet. Hampton was the first one to play this instrument ( the first recordings are with Louis Armstrong's Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra from the summer of 1930). Hij moest alles zelf uitvinden ( = He had to find it out all by himself) Frits teached. We could listen to the predecessors on the instrument like Red Norvo, Milt Jackson, Gary Burto, Mike Mainieri and, of course, Lionel Hampton.

Frits Landesbergen, hidden behind his giant instrument ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)
Sweet Georgia Brown: A great standard to finish this one-but-last concert of the Porgy en Bess season; on the 15th of April, 2010 the Ploctones directed by VPRO-Boy Edgar Award winner Anton Goudsmit will turn off the lights ...

Hans Koert

keepswinging@live.nl

Frits Landes.... ( as read on his instrument)
It was great to hear Frits Landesbergen on vibes - an instrument to be associated with swing music, but in his hands developed into an instrument for all jazz styles If you like this kind of concerts, and you love to be informed, feel free to register for the blogs weekly news letter - Don't miss it.