Netherlands - The Southeast

 As we come back to the province of North Brabant, the eastern half this time, we arrive in Ravenstein, where singer/songwriter Alex Roeka was born.  Training and working as a psychologist initially he came to music relatively late in life during the 1990's.  His music is mostly about his poetry, which I'm not going to translate here, but it's in style the closest the Dutch have to chanson.  Here's a song from his 2008 album Beet Van Liefde (Bite of love) called Wat Is Toch de Liefde (What is that love)

Singer/songwriter Gerard van Maasakkers was born in 1949 in Nuenen in the province of North Brabant and sings folk in his own regional dialect of Brabants.  He has been active since the 1970's and has released his latest album Ik Loop (I'm walking) in 2019.  Here is the title song from the album:

Next we are heading to Helmond in North Brabant, where the members of Jazz trio the Rosenberg Trio, Stochelo, Nous'sche and Nonnie Rosenberg, hail from.  The band has been going since 1989 and they are inspired by the Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt.  They have collaborated with many great musicians from all over the world, including Jan Akkerman, Stéphane Grapelli, Herman van Veen, Toots Thielemans, Shirley Bassey, Randy Crawford and Luciano Pavarotti.  Here's a tune featuring on their 2007 album Roots called Valse a Rosenthal:

Brabant humoristic folk band Dommelvolk was mostly active between 1977 and 1984 with a brief revival between 2000 to 2005 in Eindhoven.  They finally called it a day with the death of their lead singer Ad van Genechten.  They took their inspiration from farmer's songs and didn't take themselves too seriously.  Their albums are hard to get hold of these days, but their most successful one was Ptazzie.  Here's a live version of a song from that album called Woensel Kermis with a rather long intro in Brabant Dutch, so apologies to non-Dutch speakers, which I hope will give you an impression of their fun style.  It's essentially about the going-ons at a fun fair in the Eindhoven district of Woensel.

Accordionist Carel Kraayenhof was born in Aalst in North Brabant.  His specialist subject is the tango and he plays any kind of squeeze box.  His big idol was Argentinian tango accordionist Ástor Piazzola, who peronally urged Kraayenhof to come to Broadway to work on the musical Tango Apasionando.  Here's a recent piece in duo with folk singer Leoni Jansen called Cucurucucu Paloma:

And finally for something completely different from Maastricht in the province of Limburg.  This is where psychedelic band Yin Yin hail from around Kees Berkers and Yves Lennertz, who share a fascination of Thai sounds.  They place their music somewhere on a tropical island between the Netherlands and Southeast Asia.  They released their debut album in 2019 entitled The Rabbit That Hunts the Tiger.  Here's a hypnotic funky dance tune from the album called One Inch Punch:

That's it from the Netherlands, next we'll head into Germany, where I have spent most of my youth.  As usual you follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.

Netherlands - Zeeland and western North Brabant

 

A new year and a new country, my home country, the Netherlands.  First  of all a clarification: the official name of the country is the Netherlands.  Holland are only the 2 provinces of North and South Holland in the west, which contain the main urban centres of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, but still exclude large parts of the country.  Calling the whole country Holland is equivalent to calling the United Kingdom England.  Secondly the nationality and language of its citizens should be Netherlanders and Netherlandish respectively.  The term Dutch originates from a common Roman term referring to the Babarian tribes north of the Alps and still finds itself in the German name of their country Deutschland, but we'll stick to the more commonly used Dutch for both the nationality and the language.

We begin our musical journey through the country in the southwest in the province of Zeeland.  Jazz saxophonist Paul van der Feen and his 7 brothers and sisters grew up in a musical family in the the pretty seaside town of Middelburg.  They all started playing music from an early age and began performing when still in their teens during the 1990's.  Most notably they performed as the Paul van der Feen Quartet with Paul being joined by his brothers Mark, Matthijs and Clemens.  Here's an extract of them performing a live gig in Amsterdam:

In 1978 Dutch instrumental music ensemble Flairck was born around guitar virtuoso Erik Visser, who was actually born in Indonesia, but moved with his family to Ulvenhout in the province of North Brabant, where he grew up.  The band played a blend of folk, jazz and chamber influenced music and were very successful and productive until about 2004.  This is the title track from their 1978 debut album Variaties op een Dame: 

In 2017 they re-formed under a completely changed personnel with some Belgian influences, including the already featured violinist Anouk Sanczuk, but without Erik Visser.  So essentially its a brand new band, but the philosophy remained the same.  The end of last year they released a new album called Back Alive!  Here's a track from the album, which is a good one to reinforce some Dutch stereotypes: Stoned Wedding:

Moving on to the city of Tilburg in North Brabant, where we come across folk band Wè-nun Henk, who were active between 1995 and about 2008.  They very much show off the folk traditions of their home region.  They only recorded 4 albums in their time including the 2002 album Bar.  Here's a a live recording of a song from the album called De Vagabond.  Apologies for the sound quality:

As we are just into the New Year here is Een Vrolijk Nieuwjaarslied (A happy New Year's song) from the same album:

On this note, a happy New Year to you all and see you next time in South Holland.  As usual you follow my virtual ramblings on my tripline map.