The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band
Encyclopedia
The Kenny Clarke–Francy Boland Big Band was one of the most noteworthy jazz big bands formed outside the United States.
It was formed in 1961, when, with the help of producer Gigi Campi, the US drummer Kenny Clarke
and Belgian pianist and composer Francy Boland
and ex-Ellington bassist Jimmy Woode
brought together several jazz musicians of note. Although based in Europe, the band was truly multinational, also having several US musicians in the line-up.
It was disbanded in 1972, after having recorded more than 15 albums. They released many of their albums on the German jazz record label MPS Records
.
, Muvaffak "Maffy" Falay
, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Ronnie Scott
, Carl Drewo, Tony Coe
, Derek Humble
, Nat Peck
, Ake Persson
, Dusko Goykovich, Stan Sulzmann
, Ack van Rooyen, John Surman
, Jimmy Deuchar
, Manfred Schoof
, Albert Mangelsdorff
, Erik van Lier, Ron Mathewson
, Fats Sadi, Kenny Clare
, Benny Bailey
, Jimmy Woode
, Art Farmer
, Sahib Shihab
, Shake Keane
, Idrees Sulieman
, Herb Geller
, and were joined on occasions by Phil Woods
, Zoot Sims
, Stan Getz
and many others.
post-Clarke:
It was formed in 1961, when, with the help of producer Gigi Campi, the US drummer Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
and Belgian pianist and composer Francy Boland
Francy Boland
François Boland was a classically trained Belgian jazz composer and pianist.He first gained notice in 1949 and worked with Belgian jazz greats like Bobby Jaspar, and in 1955 he joined Chet Baker's quintet...
and ex-Ellington bassist Jimmy Woode
Jimmy Woode
Jimmy Woode was a jazz bassist. His father, also named Jimmy Woode, was a music teacher and pianist who played with Hot Lips Page...
brought together several jazz musicians of note. Although based in Europe, the band was truly multinational, also having several US musicians in the line-up.
It was disbanded in 1972, after having recorded more than 15 albums. They released many of their albums on the German jazz record label MPS Records
MPS Records
MPS Records was a German jazz record label founded in 1968. MPS stands for "Musik Produktion Schwarzwald" .-History:...
.
Members
Members of the band included Johnny GriffinJohnny Griffin
John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
, Muvaffak "Maffy" Falay
Muvaffak "Maffy" Falay
Muvaffak "Maffy" Falay is a Turkish trumpeter. Born in 1930 in Kuşadası, he studied trumpet and piano in Ankara Conservatory. In 1960 he entered the radio orchestra under the conduction of Kurt Edelhagen, in Köln...
, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
, Carl Drewo, Tony Coe
Tony Coe
Anthony George Coe is a composer and jazz musician who plays clarinet, bass clarinet, and tenor saxophone.Coe began his performing career playing with Humphrey Lyttelton's band from 1957 to 1962...
, Derek Humble
Derek Humble
Derek Humble was an English jazz alto saxophonist.Humble was born at Livingston, Durham, England and played professionally from his teenage years. He was working with Kathy Stobart by 1950 and played with Vic Lewis in 1951 and Jack Parnell in 1952...
, Nat Peck
Nat Peck
Nat Peck is an American jazz trombonist.Nat Peck was born in New York City. He played with Glenn Miller and Don Redman early in his career...
, Ake Persson
Åke Persson
Åke Persson was a Swedish bebop jazz trombonist.Persson, known as "the Comet", moved from southern Sweden to Stockholm in 1951, where he played in Simon Brehm's quintet...
, Dusko Goykovich, Stan Sulzmann
Stan Sulzmann
Stanley Ernest Sulzmann is an English jazz saxophonist.Sulzmann began on saxophone at age 13 and played in Bill Ashton's London Youth Jazz Orchestra, later the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1969-1972...
, Ack van Rooyen, John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
, Jimmy Deuchar
Jimmy Deuchar
James "Jimmy" Deuchar was a jazz trumpeter and big band arranger, born in Dundee, Scotland. He found fame as a performer and arranger in the 1950s and 1960s...
, Manfred Schoof
Manfred Schoof
Manfred Schoof is a German jazz trumpet player.He studied music in Kassel and Cologne.He is a founder of European free jazz and collaborated with Albert Mangelsdorff, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, and Irène Schweizer...
, Albert Mangelsdorff
Albert Mangelsdorff
Albert Mangelsdorff was one of the most accredited and innovative trombonists of modern jazz who became famous for his distinctive technique of playing multiphonics.-Biography:...
, Erik van Lier, Ron Mathewson
Ron Mathewson
Ron Mathewson is a Scottish jazz double bassist and bass guitarist born in Lerwick, Shetland Isles, Scotland. Mathewson is best known for his years spent working with Ronnie Scott, but has also done recordings with Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Eldridge, Oscar...
, Fats Sadi, Kenny Clare
Kenny Clare
Kenneth 'Kenny' Clare was an English jazz drummer. He should not be confused with Kenny Clarke, whose band he played in....
, Benny Bailey
Benny Bailey
Benny Bailey, born Ernest Harold Bailey , was an American bebop and hard-bop jazz trumpeter.-Biography:...
, Jimmy Woode
Jimmy Woode
Jimmy Woode was a jazz bassist. His father, also named Jimmy Woode, was a music teacher and pianist who played with Hot Lips Page...
, Art Farmer
Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. His identical twin brother, Addison Farmer Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer (August 21, 1928, Council Bluffs, Iowa –...
, Sahib Shihab
Sahib Shihab
Sahib Shihab was an American jazz saxophonist and flautist.-Biography:...
, Shake Keane
Shake Keane
Ellsworth McGranahan “Shake” Keane was a jazz musician, poet and government minister...
, Idrees Sulieman
Idrees Sulieman
Idrees Sulieman was a bop and hard bop trumpeter. He studied at Boston Conservatory, and gained early experience playing with the Carolina Cotton Pickers and the wartime Earl Hines Orchestra...
, Herb Geller
Herb Geller
Herb Geller , is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger.His musical abilities could have been inherited from his mother, Francis. She worked at the Hollywood neighbourhood cinemas playing piano, accompanying silent movies...
, and were joined on occasions by Phil Woods
Phil Woods
Philip Wells Woods is an American jazz bebop alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader and composer.-Biography:...
, Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
and many others.
Discography
- Jazz is Universal (1962) Atlantic RecordsAtlantic RecordsAtlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
- Handle With Care (1963) Atlantic
- Now Hear Our Meanin (1965) Columbia RecordsColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
- Swing, Waltz, Swing, Carl Drewo und die Clarke–Boland Big Band (1966) Philips RecordsPhilips RecordsPhilips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...
- Jazz Convention Vol. I (1967) KPM – also re-issued as Open Door (Muse)
- Jazz Convention Vol. II: Contemporary Jazz Moods... (1967) KPM
- Sax No End (1967) MPS RecordsMPS RecordsMPS Records was a German jazz record label founded in 1968. MPS stands for "Musik Produktion Schwarzwald" .-History:...
, Pausa – aka Fire, Soul, Heat & Guts (Prestige RecordsPrestige RecordsPrestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
) - Out of the Folk Bag (1967) Columbia
- 17 Men and Their Music (1967) Campi
- Latin Kaleidoscope (1968) MPS, Prestige
- All Smiles (1968) MPS – aka Let's Face the Music (Prestige)
- Faces (1968) MPS
- More (1968) Campi – aka More Jazz in the Movies (CAM)
- Jazz Convention Vol. III (1968) KPM
- My Kind of World, Gitte & The Band (1968) Hör Zu – aka Gitte Hænning meets the Francy Boland-Kenny Clarke Big Band aka Gitte Sings Jazz
- Fellini 712 (1969) MPS
- Volcano,...Live At Ronnie's (1969) Polydor RecordsPolydor RecordsPolydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
- Rue Chaptal,...Live At Ronnie's (1969) Polydor
- More Smiles (1969) MPS
- All Blues (1969) MPS
- At Her Majesty's Pleasure… (1969) Black Lion RecordsBlack Lion RecordsBlack Lion Records was a jazz record label based in London, England.Black Lion was founded by Alan Bates in 1968. The label had two series of releases, one for British jazz musicians and one for international musicians...
- Clarke-Boland Big Band En Concert Avec Europe 1 (1969) RTÉ – aka TNP: Oct. 29th, 1969 (Delta Music), aka Paris Concert (Laserlight)
- Off Limits (1970) Polydor
- November Girl, Carmen McRae / The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band (1970) Black Lion
- Changes of Scenes, Stan Getz and the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band (1971) Verve RecordsVerve RecordsVerve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
post-Clarke:
- Francy Boland – The Orchestra 1: Blue Flame (1976) MPS
- Francy Boland – The Orchestra 2: Red Hot (1976) MPS
- Francy Boland – The Orchestra 3: White Heat (1976) MPS
Compilations and combination re-issues
- (Ebulient Roaring Screaming Big Band Sound of) Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland, Special Guest Artist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (1972) MPS – selected tracks from More Smiles and Sax No End
- The Best of the Clarke-Boland Big Band (1974) MPS – selected tracks from All Smiles, More Smiles and Sax No End
- Smiles (1976) MPS – Encore Vol. 7: The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band – All Smiles (complete) + More Smiles (complete)
- Live at Ronnie Scott's (1976) MPS – Encore Vol. 9: The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band - Volcano (complete) + Rue Chaptal (complete)
- Historically Speaking (1993) Emanon – selected tracks from 6 previously released albums plus some unissued tracks
- Blowing the Cobwebs Out (1994) Emanon – Volcano (complete) + Rue Chaptal (complete) + At Her Majesty's Pleasure (complete) + Off Limits (almost complete)
- Two Originals (1994) MPS – All Blues (complete) + Sax No End (Complete)
- Three Latin Adventures (1995) MPS – Latin Kaleidoscope (complete) + Fellini 712 (complete)
- Our Kinda Strauss (1998) Rearwind – Swing, Waltz, Swing (almost complete) plus several bonus tracks
- Blue Flame / Red Hot / White Heat (2008) MPS – Francy Boland - The Orchestra: Blue Flame (complete) + ...Red Hot (complete) + ...White Heat (complete)
- Now Hear Our Meanin' – The Complete 1963 Recordings (2009) Jazz lips – Now Hear Our Meanin (complete) + Handle with Care (complete) + 4 tracks from Swing, Waltz, Swing