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Albums related with Swing Music.
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| 1. |
Let`s Dance |
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Doctor Bernard and his Swing Orchestra Let`s Dance |
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Doctor Bernard CD release on July 2011. This CD is filled with dance music. This CD comes with a 24 pages booklet. |
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 Order in the webshop. |
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 Listen this album. |
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| 2. |
The Rosenberg Trio |
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Featuring Bernard Berkhout |
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In May 2006 I received a phonecall from Stochelo Rosenberg, the lead guitarist of the trio, asking if I felt like recording a CD for a French record label. Having been a Django Reinhardt fan all my life, I jumped!
Immediately I got all the Hubert Rostaing records I could find, experimenting with his tone and phrasing, which is after all, quite different from my own style. Then, 9 months later Stochelo was on the phone again, asking if I was ready to record within 2 weeks! We had a ball in the studio! Unfortunately, due to my obligations as a doctor and Stochelo`s busy schedule, we haven`t been able to perform together yet. Listen to this thrilling musical adventure for yourself. My favourites are (of course) Songe d`Automne, Duke and Dukee, Dinette, Stockholm and - of course - Manoir de mes Reves. Here Stochelo makes the guitar moan and groan, while I have the exquisite privilege to play that haunting melody. Working with gypsies was a truly new and revealing experience to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And if you search the Music Player on the right bottom of the page, you may be able to find some recordings of the rehearsals! |
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Listen this album. |
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| 3. |
4Beat6 Vol.1 |
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The Band that plays the music of Benny Goodman! |
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This CD was recorded in May 2006 at Studio The Smederij, Zeist Holland, with the outstanding technical assistance of Marius Beets. The 4beat6 approach was to take the recordings of the Benny Goodman sextet and 'reproduce' them as true to the original as possible. This sounds a lot easier than it turned out to be! The drummer had to get a special drumkit, with an enormous bassdrum, the bassist had to play original gut strings, the vibesman got some really hard mallets theat sounded like hammers, in order to approach that unique tone of Lionel in the thirties. OriginaI instruments! And of course it meant hours and hours of actually sitting around an oldfashioned record player listening to 78's! I actually copied one or two Goodman solo's, arguing that it couldn't be done better than in the original. This must be the way classical musicians work! Unfortunately, as a jazz musician it wasn't challenging enough to keep 'reproducing' at concerts. It was a wonderful experience, but not to be prolonged endlessly. If you want to hear me play this music the way I like to perform it live, listen to the Swingmates. |
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Listen this album. |
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| 4. |
Bernard Berkhout en Jeroen Koning |
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You'd be so nice to come home to |
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This was a cooperation with Swingmates guitarist of that period Jeroen Koning, whio did a marvellous job of arranging. A rue musical cameleon, he switche from electric to spanish guitar, from latin to swing, form soloing to accopmanying. Although it seemed a small project at the time, instigated by the Golden Tukip Hotel Leiden, it has proven to be one of the more lasting. I still get compliments and buying requests for it very regularly. Recorded in 1990. Producer the late Job Somer. |
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Listen this album. |
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| 5. |
Bernard Berkhout'5 |
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Royal Flush |
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My friend Adriaan jeaggi wrote the liner notes to this beauty.
I have to quote (some of) the original Dutch tekst:
"De leden van dit uitzonderlijke orkest wonen duizenden kilometers uit elkaar, maar zijn elkaar uiteindelijk tegengekomen op een klein podium, in een kleine studio, om de muziek te maken die daar thuishoort. Het is muziek van vijf rasmuzikanten, die voor een korte periode bij elkaar waren, om daarna weer hun eigen weg te gaan. Het is werkelijk verbazingwekkend hoeveel er in zo'n korte periode kan gebeuren. (...) Heel even was alles precies zoals het moest zijn, Kort, intens, goed om het meegemaakt te hebben. Het is net het leven zelf, vind u niet?"
Adriaan died in 2008, 45 years of age.
This was one of my best musical experiences ever. My first wife (on the cover) is from Sydney. On a visit their I walked into the Strawberry Hills Club one evening and there was a little guy playing Donna Lee at an incredible tempo...on a violin! I couldn't believe it. I walked up to the stage and we had a musical ball that lasted till the small hours. Afterwards he invited me to his studio to do some recording. The result was a cassette tape that I was able to take home with me as a lovely souvenir from down under; Southern strings! Having come home I played the tape to a host of people, among others Timeless records owner and producer Wim Wigt. He listened to the tape once and his reaction was as decisive as it was short:"Get him over". As such was done. Violinist Ian Cooper, then about 20 years old, jumped to the opportunity and suggested to bring a friend along by the same name: Ian Date, in my opinion one of the best swing guitarists on earth. So three months later, in march 1994, Ian & Ian came and stayed at my house for a month, rehearsing, arranging, tasting Dutch an Belgian beers and getting a taste of Leiden, where I then lived. After a month of choosing, arranging and rehearsing tunes, we went into the recording studio, accompanied by German guitarist Holger Weber and Frans van Geest on the bass. The result is here and it wasn't wasted on the critics. Years later I found the description in the 1994 Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD accompanied by 4 (!) stars. It goes:
* * * *Royal Flush: "Berkhout's gift is to take a jazz setting of foregone conclusion and resolve it in a wholly unexpected way. Berkhout's playing ." agile, yearning, without a hint of routine ." is matched by Cooper's violin."
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD 1994
A year later Ian Cooper made a CD in Sydney and invited me to come and join. We played some Australian jazzfestivals that year. Unfortunately, the band hasn't been back together since. Fortunately Ian Date moved to Ireland recently so we can meet regularly to play concerts in Ireland as well as in the Netherlands. |
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Listen this album. |
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| 6. |
Bernard Berkhout's Swingmates |
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Good enough to keep |
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This was another one of my short adventures. After the original Swingmates (vibes, guitar, bass, drums) had split up in 1996, I took the opportunity to add some flavours I had grown to miss. Winds! From the chamber-musical settings of the swingmates, I decided to move to something more 'substantial'. Hence the referral to Woody Herman's New Thundering Herd. Being more or less a veteran myself by then, I found some gifted conservatory students. All incredibly driven. They were a great bunch! Tenor saxophonist Simon Rigter did some beautiful arranging (and playing!) on this CD, as did pianist Eric van der Luyt. In the ranks are also Erik Kooger en alto saxophonist Rick van de Berg (nowadays a baritonesax player in the highest demand). I'm very proud to say that these guys have all become highly succesfull players. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances I had to quit the band after a while, but not before we received the Duketown Award of 1996! My favourites are Everyman for Himself and two wonderful compositions by Simon Rigter, Leaking Roof and Griffin'. Arranger of the remaining pieces: Udo van Boven. |
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Listen this album. |
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| 7. |
Bernard Berkhout's Swingmates |
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Pennies from heaven |
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This is my only CD on tenorsaxophone. It was recorded in the hot summer of 1991. I was a medical intern at the time. The swingmates were thinking about new directions and I'd had a lifelong hate/love affair with Stan Getz and the tenorsax. Stan had died that spring. The Swingmates had found an outstanding new drummerin hans Dekker since Bob Dekker had left the band for a much more lucrative part in the Dutch Swing College Band. For this project we were generously joined by pianist Karel Boehlee, who plays with Toots Thielemans now. You couldn't be Cuter was dedicated to my one year old son Christiaan, who is now an eighteen year old student and far from cute! |
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Listen this album. |
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| 8. |
Bernard Berkhout's Swingmates |
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Airmail special |
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Airmail Special was my first cooperation with Wim Wigt, owner and producer of Timeless Records. Wim gave us total freedom and plenty of studiotime. The record was produced by Ruud Jacobs, now famous - and rich - for 'inventing' Andre Rieu, and myself. I approached the project as a 'concept record', in the classical Sinatra-sense, trying to tell a story from 'cover to cover'. It starts out in a blue-ish mood with But not for me, reaching several emotiononal highs and lows, and closing with the foreclosing Let's call the whole thingh off.
I think it more or less summarizes the history of the early Swingmates. To me, despite the fact that we got plenty of praise for other things we did, this is THE Swingmates-CD. Chambermusic, jubilant at times, introverted at times, always sophisticated and controlled. In my consideration, this is the one time I was privileged to truly enjoy the incredible talent of Frits Landesbergen. He's close to you, he talks - on vibes! - almost hugs... And then he suddenly turns into the busy drummer. Bags packed, car-keys in hand, on his way to the next gig. To me, he was never better than here, because here he was better than live... I love this CD. |
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Listen this album. |
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| 9. |
Bernard Berkhout's Swingmates |
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Fascinating rhythm |
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This was the first Swingmates LP. In 1987 it was recorded and in 1988 it was awarded an Edison (grammy award). When I listen to my own playing it sounds like yesterday. I hope to play with a little more harmonic 'conscience' now, but at the same time I also hope to have retained the spontaneity and agility. Frans and Bob nowadays play exactly as they did then, while Jeroen works mostly as a bassist now. You can hear the differences in arranging, from the more modern style of Frits (It ain't necessarily so) , which never really gave me complete comfort, to the sparkkiling ingenmuity of the conceptions of Jeroen Koning (Fledermaus, Cheek to Cheek). In the ballads I find myself sounding quite melancholy at times. Maybe I wasn't all that happy then after all. Who knows, maybe that unhappiness payed us the Grammy! |
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Listen this album. |
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| 11. |
Have You Met Miss Bell? |
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Madeline Bell & The Swingmates |
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In the middle of 1992 I was at the end of my medical internships at Leiden University Hospital. 22 months of working as an intern, playing very little music, had left me longing for a musical project. It is at these times in life that Sascha van Esdonk and I tend to run into each other. Sascha in those days had a successful jazz-agency and wanted to penetrate the theater-market. I was - to be exact - fed up with hospitals and dying to break out of that hierarchy-ridden world of early hours!
Sascha asked me if I wanted to think about a job at her office - as a salesman! She had lots of ideas, there were lots of theaters, but no product to sell as yet...
Due to my internships the Swingmates had been lacking momentum and there was no way the band could be sold in theaters on its own. We needed to bring along some Big Name. Then one afternoon, I ran into pianist and entrepreneur Dolf de Vries, playing at one of the famous Swing Society Concerts in Amsterdam. He mentioned the name of a black singer who had been touring Dutch theaters for two years in a successful production called the Cotton Club. She'd been the star of the show and her name was Madeline Bell!
I only knew her name from the English, then commercially successful but rather insipid hybrid productions called The Young Amadeus. She was approached by Sascha van Esdonk, and asked if she'd be free to do some concerts with the Swingmates. After a few anxious days the answer came back from London. The deal was on! We had our 'product'!
In october of '92 I graduated, took the medical oath and next day I was in Sascha's car, off to about 150 Dutch theaters! In a week I'd sold 8 concerts. Sascha and I had a ball (and a bottle of Champagne)! It all turned out into a 40-concert tour of the Netherlands! The Swingmates were back in business, and the doctor was back in music! This could have been the start of something great had I had the audacity to keep steering my own ship.
Unfortunately, having been through college, day and night internships and several years of a trying relationship, I lacked the strength. To my lasting regret I gave in to Frits's repeated request to involve skilled pianist and arranger Cor Bakker. His participation led to atomization and The Swingmates became an anemic accompaniment to Madeline Bell.
The project lasted for several years but it was never satisfying to me. In the end there was nothing left of the initial spirit and when in 1996 I found out that Frits was courting Madeline for new projects while I was selling Swingmates-concerts for the next season, the end was inevitable. The Swingmates broke up and I finally applied for specialization in medicine. The Swingmates had a great future behind them... |
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Listen this album. |
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| 13. |
Jazz At The Philharmonic - 1995 |
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Pim Jacobs & Bernard Berkhout |
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Pim Jacobs was a Dutch celebrity in 1985. He had a weekly talkshow on television (which meant everybody knew him!) for more than 10 years. Also, he'd been married for 40 years to what argueably could be called Europe's first lady of jazz, Rita Reys. After all she could boast on having made a record with Art Blakey in 1960 something, and that meant the world in 1989! On top of that, Pim had been presenting numerous government sponsored television shows that featured top of the bill American musicians. So to be in touch with this incredible guy meant to me the road to stardom! He was really famous, and he swung, and so did I! Between 1985 and 1996, Pim and I became friends. For about 10 years we played at least 30 concerts a year, brooded constantly on new ideas, found sponsors where others would dread to try, and actually provided quite a few jazz musicians of the day with a substantial amount of jobs. Pim had always been a promotor of a timeless, generationless - I'm sure he meant 'Eternal' - concept of jaz-music. After all he was the product of an upper middle class upbringing, his father a lawyer, his mother a self employed ballet teacher and when he chose jazz instead of a 'decent' career, it was not what was his parents thought was going to pay for the family-Mercedes!
Pim was a shrewed businessman, but I am totally convinced that Pim was also an idealist. I know this for sure. When I was 28 and on my way to become a surgeon, I was confronted with my abilities as a jazz.musician. I went to Pim for advice. After an evening of talking over good food an wine, he told me about 'the finger'. He meant his father's... He told me to ignore it if it felt right to me. Pim would have been a good doctor!
This happenend in 1988. Unfotunately, Pim died in 1996. With him died an initiative which could have been really great. And of this initiative this CD is a witness.
In 1995 Pim and I were on the verge of organizing a new Jazz at the Philharmonic: True Jazz On Big Stages! We were going to do this all over the world because we knew the agents, we knew sponsors, and we knew the musicians (of course) and we knew how to do it!
And then Pim got sick. 6 months after these recordings he died of cancer. 1996 was a terrible year.
At the time of this recording we had no clue of what we were in for...
This CD is my tribute to Pim Jacobs and his well bread, witty, naughty ,endeavouring but always reliable and restrained spirit. If there was ever something I found lacking in him, it was academic spirit. In that sense his father was probably right after all. Pim would have been happier in an aademic, more bougeois career. But then, he never would have found that incredible spouse! Have a look! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3z_60J72fY |
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Listen this album. |
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| 14. |
Madeline Bell & The Swingmates |
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Madeline Bell & The Swingmates |
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Listen to it for yourselves. I haven't yet... |
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Listen this album. |
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| 16. |
Ode aan Benny Goodman |
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Ode aan benny goodman |
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This is really how my musical career began. In 1985 I was was a just-married happy-go-lucky musician enjoying the sheltered life that used to come with having enrolled in the medical faculty of Leiden University in the 1980's. I played in street bands, was a piece of the furniture at our local jazzcafe The Duke - That had live jazz every day of the week mind you! And still has!!! Check it out!- and every friday, saturday and sunday I played in Scheveningen (the Hague's beach resort) with Ted Easton's Hot Shots! We had just founded the Leidsch Studenten Jazz Gezelschap (check youtube!) which had - 2 months after its founding - won the Breda Jazz Competition! All this music was great for me because in those days there was no work for doctors at all and I had to come to terms with a dilemma that had been bothering me for several years: Music or Medicin? I was in no hurry to become an unemployed doctor and everything coming up in music was a new challenge!
Then came along Pim Jacobs. Everybody knew him from Dutch television. He'd been presenting a musical television show - for several decades! - called Music All Inn. It was a great show that featured a host of world-famous jazzcelebrities.
One evening Pim and I shared the stage in Zaandam - where I would many years later work as a doctor - and I think it was love at first sight. 2 weeks later he phoned me to ask if I would like to be featured on this television show too. With Eddie Daniels on clarinet!
Eddie Daniels!!!! This is the video you can see on youtube nowadays.
Pim was not only looking for young talent for his television shows but also for accompanimenton his annually renewed theaterprogram with singer and spouse Rita Reys, so we were to join Pim on television and on stage, and that made a joining of forces on record (still LP in those days) inevitable.
From the cover you can clearly see that this record was meant to sell on the Goodman name. After all, Benny had just died and Pim and his shrewd brother Ruud (polygram producer/bassist) came up with the idea of a ride on a probable wave of nostalgia. Did I ever know? Of course not! I just played! Actually, I didn't even know Goodman had died! I didn't read newspapers! I played all day and night! And I wasn't into Goodman at all! My idol at the time was Jan Morks, who died in the same year of 1984... Check him out! He's the guy who made the Dutch Swing College Band worldfamous and never got to profit from his unique contribution! So what you can hear in these tracks is a curious combination of old men trying to sound original, joined by two very young musicians of very different origins: Frits Landesbergen (vibes), emotionally inhibited and aloof, full of Milt Jackson and self esteem. And a harmonically naive, emotionally overboiling, and rhythmically bursting, clarinettist: Me.
What strikes me after all these years (22!) is that it all sounds so incredibly relaxed. That must have been Ruud's magic, which is all the more remarkable as he was - temporarily - very ill at the time...
Don't forget Jan Morks. Check my links. |
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Listen this album. |
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| ©Doctor Bernard 2009 - 2012