Dick van der Capellen

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Dick van der Capellen (born February 11, 1919 in Batavia ; † January 27, 2011 in Voorburg ) was a Dutch jazz musician ( double bass , also guitar, composition ). In the 1950s and 1960s he played an important role in renewing the Dutch jazz scene.

Live and act

Capellen, who is a self-taught musician , first appeared in 1936 as a guitarist and bassist in a band that played Hawaiian music. During the Second World War he had to work as a slave labor in Burma. After the capitulation of Japan he played in the Blanton Trio Jazz (named after Jimmy Blanton ) ; he also worked for the radio in Indonesia with Jos Clebers Cosmopolitain Orkest .

In 1952 he migrated to the Netherlands, where he got to know modern jazz . He played with Rob Pronk , Pia Beck and Kid Dynamite . In 1956 he recorded four pieces with The Millers . In the same year and in February 1957 he was involved in the recording of the third LP Jazz behind the Dikes ; he was the bass player for the Dutch All Stars around Wessel Ilcken and the sextet around Stido Alström.

From 1957 he directed the hard bop quintet The Diamonds (with Cees Smal , Harry Verbeke , Cees Slinger and John Engels ), which performed regularly at the Amsterdam club Sheherazade , until a car accident and several months of hospitalization brought Capellen to an end in August 1959. In the following years, under the impression of the recordings of Scott LaFaro with Bill Evans , he began to emancipate himself from the role as accompanist and to play more solo than before on the bass; Boy Edgar brought him in as a guest soloist for the recordings with his big band ( Now's The Time , Finch Eye ). Capellens Trio (with Chris Hinze and Cees See ) presented its approach of free jazz at the German Jazz Festival in 1966 . The Trio's album The Present Is Past was named "Record of the Month" by Jazzwereld magazine in 1968 .

He can also be heard as bassist on Willem Breuker's first record ( Litany for the 14th of June, 1966 1966) and on Mal Waldron's Number Nineteen (1969). He also worked on recordings by Nedly Elstak , Greetje Kauffeld , Jossche Monitz, Rob Agerbeek and also the comedian Paul van Vliet , whom he accompanied in the early 1970s. In 1976 he performed with his trio at the first North Sea Jazz Festival . Then he largely withdrew from the scene, but composed sacred songs.

Discographic notes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dick van der Capellen (David de Jongh)
  2. ↑ Documented on Free At The German Jazz Festival 1966 (Be Jazz, 2016)
  3. ↑ Chris Hinze (De Knipscheer)
personal data
SURNAME Capellen, Dick van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch jazz musician (bass, composition)
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Batavia
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 2011
Place of death Voorburg