WILLEM BREUKER KOLLEKTIEF

Misery
Bvhaast CD 0204

Twenty-eight years after its organization, it appears as if there are rote expectations that must be met with every CD and live performance by the Willem Breuker Kollektief (WBK). The program, it seems, must include some thematic orchestral pastiche composed and arranged by leader Breuker, with space left for the band’s main jazz soloists, including himself; there has to be a rearrangement of a famous or obscure pop song; some early so-called classical piece must be recast; and space should be left for a tongue-in-cheek vocal (in English) by Breuker himself.

MISERY fills the bill. It’s just amazing how, after all these years, the formula still works.

Of course the WBK of 2002 shouldn’t be confused with the saxophonist’s earliest, more anarchistic bands or his even-earlier career as a freelance free jazz firebrand whose saxophone playing ignited many a Continental improv session. No, today’s WBK is above all a reading band, able to take in anyone’s score at a glance and immediately turn the music on paper into note-perfect, swinging section work, sort of the way bands like Jimmy Lunceford’s and Tommy Dorsey’s would pride themselves on doing during the Swing Era.

There are questions about the material as well. Are certain tunes included because Breuker is mocking them; or does he too share a guilty pleasure in a well-played melody with his longtime followers? As for the original material, it’s as theatrical as always, rife with distinct harmonies, structural principles and direct quotes from other sources. Yet there is such an extensive Kollektief repertoire now, some of it frequently revived and reorchestrated, that compositions appear as set pieces within a program, rather than standalone creations.

You could say that about the soloists as well. In truth, the most accomplished are trumpeter Boy Raaymakers, bassist Arjen Gorter and Breuker himself, all grizzled veterans of the so-called Golden Era of Free Jazz. However when anyone steps forward --as happens on “I Remember April” and “Hulpverkrabber 911”, the CD’s two longest pieces -- you’re reminded of the members of those little bands within the big bands like Artie Shaw’s Gramercy Five, Dorsey’s Clambake Seven or Bob Crosby’s The Bobcats. Each soloist exhibits his specialty rather than advancing the piece at hand.

“April” is illustrative in itself, as it mixes that ballad with snatches of the lesser-known “Senza Parole”. There’s a steady jazz beat from the rhythm section -- all cymbals and snares -- plus pounding bass lines mixed with some cheesy roller rink organ heavy on the tremolos played by Henk de Jonge. Finally, there’s a full orchestra transition that brings to mind tuxedo wearing hotel bands in 1930s Hollywood musicals. Minor trilling and note chasing characterize some of Martin van Norden’s tenor saxophone solo, but there’s not much in it that Zoot Sims wouldn’t have played in 1956. Andrew Bruce’s trombone feature is all slick pre-modern splashes and smears. While Gorter’s short turn relates more to Paul Chambers-style time keeping than anything he himself was doing in the 1960s. Still if it wasn’t for his beat and drummer Rob Verdurmen’s rhythmic command the whole thing would ground to a halt midway when Hermine Deurloo toots out some amateurish harmonica tones. Let’s just say that neither Toots Thielemans nor James Cotton is losing any sleep this year.

A recent Breuker composition “Hulpverkrabber” sounds better, even though the composer or band members seem not to have made a final decision on its lineage. Featuring aural suggestions of fire bells and freight trains on one hand and waltzes and fanfares on the other, it drifts between earnest and parody. Stomping section parts with European pseudo-Oriental timbres resemble those played Paul Whiteman’s orchestra in the 1920s as much as Duke Ellington’s Jungle band classics. And a sped-up variation on Charles Mingus’ “Boogie Stop Shuffle” peers in and out of the arrangement as a leitmotif. While Raaymakers and section mate Andy Altenfelder may be spearing high notes as Bubber Miley and Cootie Williams used to do for Ellington, the slurping sax section sounds as if it just wandered over from Guy Lombardo’s “sweetest band this side of heaven”. Then before Verdurmen ends everything with a Gene Krupa-style drum display, Breuker, on soprano, squeezes out one of his near-patented free jazz screeches, all split tones, growls and with a stop time section. How much of this is a put-on, you wonder?

You could ask the same question about de Jonge’s waltz time arrangement of Hoagy Carmichael’s “My Resistance Is Low”. Vocalist Breuker is reborn as a whispering “boy singer” of the 1930s, with the rest of the band members providing first vocalizing glee club style, then taking a unison vocal by themselves. Meanwhile the horns provide some sweet, sweeping sax riffs that haven’t been heard since the heyday of the Casa Loma Orchestra. The brief version of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1739 “Musette En Rondeau” is as stiff and heraldic, as you’d expect of any court music of that day.

There’s plenty of variety on this nearly 59½-minute session and a lot of well-played good music. But there isn’t any exploratory, improvisational jazz here. Although several other discs released in the past 10 years offer a similar program, the CD will be welcomed by WBK fanatics. It can also serve as a good introduction to the band for the uninitiated, and is a fine souvenir of the band’s present-day live show.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing 1. Hap Sap 2. Wake Up! 3. Thirst IV (The End of the Rope) 4. Angry Jungle 5. Hulpverkrabber 911 6. My Resistance Is Low 7. Senza Parole 8. I Remember April 9. Musette En Rondeau

Personnel: Boy Raaymakers, Andy Altenfelder (trumpets); Andrew Bruce (trombone); Bernard Hunnekink (trombone, tuba); Willem Breuker (soprano and alto saxophones, vocal); Hermine Deurloo (alto saxophone, harmonica); Maarten van Norden (tenor saxophone); Henk de Jonge (piano, organ, electronics); Arjen Gorter (bass); Rob Verdurmen (drums)

December 2, 2002

WILLEM BREUKER KOLLEKTIEF

In Holland
BVHaast 0101

WILLEM BREUKER KOLLEKTIEF
To Remain
BVHaast CD 1601

Nearly 30 years after the creation of the Willem Breuker Kollektief you can refer to energetic reissues like these two and note how the Dutch 10-piece band has changed over time.

One of the Big Three post-Bop movers and shakers in Holland -- pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink are the other two -- saxophonist/composer Breuker was initially allied with the other two in the Instant Composers Pool (ICP). But, as a ferocious improviser who was as likely to turn up on sessions led by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, vibist Gunter Hampel or trumpeter Don Cherry as on Dutch dates, he obviously had energy to spare. Furthermore, gifted with a broad if somewhat sardonic sense of humor and a broad theatrical sense, he was able to tailor compositions to parodistic happenings, stage presentations, TV shows and films.

Eventually it became clear that he wasn’t prepared to play Trotsky to Mengleberg and Bennink’s Lenin and Stalin, as one of three who made a revolution, and he went on his own. Since that time Breuker, in concert with the leaders of some other large European aggregations has tended to downplay improvisations for charts that reflect his interest in modern classical music, opera, cabaret and pop music. Furthermore, he has made sure that everything the band plays is served up with a hearty drollop of visual humor. At the same time the Kollektief has grown and shrunk in size with vocalists, string players and the like added and subtracted at different times. Today a Kollektief performance is as liable to be an entertaining show as much as a jazz concert, with the leader coming across as sort of a Lowlands Paul Shaffer.

That’s a bit unfair, even though Shaffer did start off as a jazzer and has recorded with guitarist Muñoz and tubaist Howard Johnson. Although his music is peppy enough for late night TV, Breuker is far too anarchistic be long satisfied as second banana to smarmy David Letterman. Still, his vocal turn as a rock star/lounge lizard on “To be with Louis P.” on IN HOLLAND sounds a lot like Shaffer’s present persona.

Although the Kollektief remains the only other orchestra besides Sun Ra’s Arkestra that could aurally illustrate cartoons without a second thought, since the first CD here was recorded in 1981 and TO REMAIN in 1983, 1984 and 1989, the basic jazz-improv shape of the band is still in place. Breuker is also a good leader, despite -- or perhaps because -- of the fun produced. Although he gives plenty of space to the exceptional jazz soloists he has on board, he always makes it clear that the band itself is paramount. Also, like Duke Ellington’s orchestra at least a quartet of his bandsmen have been with him for almost the entire time and at least one band chair was emptied due to the death of its occupant.

Each reissue has something to recommend it. IN HOLLAND, recorded at one time is tighter, while TO REMAIN, a pastiche of three sessions, showcasing different soloists.

Nationalistically or jokingly, IN HOLLAND has as its raison d’être a rather straightforward four-part run through of “Concertino no. 5 in F minor” by Dutch baroque composer Unico Willem van Wassenaer (1692-1766). Despite the shared first name between the composer and Breuker, the main reason to perform the concertino merely seems to be to prove that, along with its other attributes, the ensemble can come up with a note-perfect recreation of period music.

Besides, that CD contains one of Breuker half reverent/half serious tangos with what sounds like a toy piano intro, a few yells and some car horn noises from the saxes. Then there’s “Kudeta”, a showcase for keyboardist Henk de Jonge that seems to meld modern jazz, Rachmaninoff, ragtime and “Moonlight Sonata”.

This musical schizophrenia continues with most of the soloists. Drummer Rob Verdurmen, for instant, keeps a steady modern jazz beat going most of the time, but appears to be emulating Gene Krupa’s “Sing Sing Sing” solo on “Overture from ‘De Vuyle Wasch’”. On his own “Pale Fire” tenor saxophonist Maarten van Norden probes deep into the avant-garde stratosphere, while the backing sounds like big band cartoon music. Even Boy Raaymakers’ feature, “Deining”, floating on a boppish piano figure, shows the veteran trumpeter coming across half Clifford Brown and half Lester Bowie, then ending like a Swing era soloist soaring over band riffs.

Section mate Andy Altenfelder appears to be playing a frelich at a Jewish wedding on “Hopsa, Hopsa”, but mixing his neighing Ziggy Ellman tone with a Bubber Miley growl. It’s an impression intensified by the accordion playing of composer de Jonge and Breuker’s Klezmer-style clarinet. But is that a quote from non-kosher “Jingle Bells” at the end?

Maybe this analysis is a bit too serious since “Interruptie”, the leader’s breakneck alto sax showcase mixes circus music blats with a sweet band reed man’s fruity tone. It ends as if he was a vaudeville trick horn player showing how high he can play and how many effects he can produce from his horn.

The cleavage in the solos is reflected in the overall creation. Fun and frantic, the backing figures and harmony appear to be distinctively in the mainstream of modern big band writing, except that is when Breuker seems to slip into some Gordon Jenkins-Billy May-like sophisticated swing. With their brass flourishes and references to tangos and European classical music the parts sound distinctive, but after the disc’s more than 78 minute (!) running time, similar to one another.

Three variants of the Kollektief give the second disc more of a variety of sounds, but paradoxically as the leader takes over all the writing chores, the number and duration of solos seems to decrease as the amount of references -- humorous and otherwise -- to other musical sources increases.

Among the standouts is trombonist Bernard Hunnekink’s speedy triple tonguing gutbucket outing on “Lokk”. He plays with growls and grit, though the horn charts in the background suggest semi-exotica à la Les Baxter. Alto saxophonist André Goudbeek constructs his feature on “Snevel” with a mixture of consistent Hard Bop with a few New Thing freak effects, though he does seem to be playing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” by the end. Bassist Arjen Gorter appears to be doing no more than exposing his inner Paul Chambers while timekeeping on “Nijpe” and “Hasps”. But this tune featuring de Jonge, speeds up and slows down so often that you aren’t sure whether he’s seriously or jokingly referencing Bebop, Chopin études and energy music at different times.

Meanwhile the last track appears to pure group music taken at a frantic tempo with quotes from “Tiger Rag”, “Take the A Train” and a final plink-plink-plink section straight from Count Basie’s piano playing. On the other hand, the penultimate track is a recreation of locomotive sounds complete with a train whistle -- and how often has that been done? “Wolkbreuk III” comes across like a Merrie Melodies version of a sea shanty, complete with cannon sounds from the synthesizer and a snatch of “Rule Britannia”. But why does this foot tapper have a swaying schmaltzy saxophone interlude that sounds closer to the work of vaudeville C-Melody sax master Rudy Wiedoeft than anyone in the Ellington band?

Taking up tracks 3 to 13, the title tune never lets up, but often in between the solos the forward motion owes more to European brass band fanfares, military marches, Cossack dances and British jigs than jazz time. Obviously 4/4 is not God’s tempo -- no matter what the neo-con jazzers may say -- but when he isn’t careful, and isn’t swinging, Breuker has a tendency to become overly cute and corny

Measuring them against the unimaginative, derivative works that many conservative European and American biggish bands have produced since that time both CDs are exciting and worth your attention. But as souvenirs of how the Kollektief has changed and what it has become, they may collectively be a caution as well as an augury.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Holland : 1. Ouverture from “De Vuyle Wasch”; 2. Sur l’autoroute 3. Tango superior 4. Interruptie 5. Deining 6. Kudeta 7. Prokof 8. Invasie muziek Bob + Babe 9. To be with Louis P.* 10. Pale fire 11. Hopsa, Hopsa Concertino no. 5 in F minor 12. Adagio 13. Da Cappella 14. A temps commodo 15. A temps giusto 16. Marche Funèbre from “De Vuyle Wasch”

Personnel: Holland : Boy Raaymakers, Andy Altenfelder (trumpet); Willem van Manen, Bernard Hunnekink (trombone); Willem Breuker (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, vocal*), Bob Driessen (alto and baritone saxophones), Maarten van Norden (alto and tenor saxophones); Henk de Jonge (piano, accordion, synthesizer); Arjen Gorter (bass); Rob Verdurmen (drums)

Track Listing: Remain: 1. Driebergen-Zeist* 2. Wolkbreuk III* To Remain: 3. Nork 4. Hoddel 5. Snevel 6. Mikkel-Gnoer 7. Dalf 8. Lokk 9. Nijpe 10. Haps 11. Barst 12. Plank III 13. Ontegen 14. Hap Sap+ 15. Like Other People Say 16. What ?*

Personnel: Remain: Raaymakers, Altenfelder (trumpet) Greg Moore [3-13,15], Hunnekink, Garrett List*, Chris Abelen+ (trombone); Breuker (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones), André Goudbeek (alto saxophone), Peter Barkema [3-15], (tenor saxophone), van Norden (tenor saxophone, clarinet)*; de Jonge (piano, synthesizer); Gorter (bass); Verdurmen (drums, percussion)

April 19, 2002