Various Artists: Hip Holland Hip

This carefully curated disc is subtitled Modern Jazz Classics 1950-1970 and is a collection of tracks recorded by Dutch musicians and released in the Netherlands mostly in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Few of the musicians other than a sprinkling of American guest artists such as Herbie Mann and Art Farmer will be known to most listeners in 2023, including, one suspects, many in the Netherlands itself. An exception is Han Bennink, who is heard on the closing track, Ben Tucker's "Comin' Home Baby" by Trio Tony Vos.

Historians will welcome the album, chronicling as it does the emergence of homegrown post-bop jazz in the Netherlands. The picture that is revealed is, unsurprisingly, that of a music deeply in thrall to the US, just as the jazz in every other European country was at the time. American hard bop and modal jazz are pervasive influences, and many of the track titles and band names are given in English rather than Dutch, as were the titles of the original LPs and EPs on which the material was released. Item: the bass ostinato on The Diamond Five's "Amsterdam Blues," a straight lift of Miles Davis' "So What." Item: the title of the next track, "So Why" by Kwartet Leo Meyer (check the YouTube below). There are many other examples of the dominance of the US at the time. But while composing and improvising paradigms were still US-centric, the technical competence of the musicians was high and their performances worth listening to, even returning to.

A 28-page liner booklet includes detailed notes and personnel listings for all of the 18 tracks except, curiously, singer Rita Reys and arranger Oliver Nelson's cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Wives And Lovers." A quick google reveals that it comes from the LP Rita Reys Meets Oliver Nelson (Philips, 1965). The track has strong period resonance, and indeed it is hard to imagine anyone singing the lyric with a straight face in 2023.

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