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Frans Elsen Septet: 'Norway,' 1972 and '73

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One of the earliest jazz uses of the Fender Rhodes electric piano was in 1968, when Herbie Hancock played it on Miles Davis's Miles in the Sky. He may have come to the instrument through the Columbia record label. CBS bought the Fender Rhodes company in 1965. By the early 1970s, the keyboard was ubiquitous, especially among emerging fusion players, including Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, George Duke, Joe Sample and others. Even acoustic players like Bill Evans, Bob James, Harold Mabern and Les McCann recorded on the bell-toned instrument. 

Abroad, one of the masters of the Fender Rhodes in the early 1970s was composer-arranger Frans Elsen of the Netherlands. Influenced by Herbie Hancock's use of the keyboard on his sextet album Mwandishi (1971), Elsen set to work on The Norwegian Cycle, a suite inspired by a July 1970 trip to Norway. The songs in the cycle were named after towns Elsen had visited: Harpefoss, Ringebu, Skabu and Otta. The music was melodic and plenty funky. The music was performed and recorded by Elsen's septet in 1972 and '73 before the concept and band were folded.

All of this music can now be heard on a new Netherlands Jazz Archive import release entitled Septet Frans Elsen: Norway, Featuring Piet Noordijk. The previously unreleased material was recorded in four different settings. The septet featured Elsen on Fender Rhodes, Piet Noordijk on alto saxophone, Eddie Engels on trumpet and flugelhorn, Wim Overgaauw on guitar, Rob Langereis on bass guitar, Eric Ineke on drums and Wim van der Beek on percussion.

The first session was held at NCRV Studio in Hilversum in May 1972. For the second recorded during a radio concert in Hilversum in June 1973, Ferdinand Povel on tenor saxophone and flute, and Victor Kaihatu on bass guitar joined the group while Overgaauw and Langereis were out. Next are two live tracks, one recorded at a jazz festival in Loosdrecht in August 1972, with Langereis out and Kaihatu on bass in. The other was recorded at Theater PePign in The Hague in April 1972, with Overgaauw and Langereis out and Kaihatu in.

This album as a concept listen is moody, funky and wonderfully melodic. It's really meant to be consumed from start to finish, as an adventure with Elsen's Fender Rhodes as tour guide. His playing is deeply rooted in the American jazz-funk expression on the instrument, letting the electric notes ring and creating expansive textures with chords. Discovering albums like this one once again reminds me how much great jazz there is out there in countries all over the world. One almost wishes for multiple lifetimes to consume it all. Hats off to the Netherlands Jazz Archives for releasing this music.

Frans Elsen died in 2011.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Septet Frans Elsen: Norway, Featuring Piet Noordijk (NJA) here. If you want to contact the label, you'll find an email and phone number at the bottom of the linked page.

JazzWax clips: Here's Frank Jochemsen of the Netherlands Jazz Archive on the music in a mini-doc. Activate the English subtitles by clicking on the “CC" icon along the bottom of the screen...



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This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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