00 Limehouse CAT LP 50 Notes.txt
LIMEHOUSE JAZZBAND
Live at the Haarlemse Jazz Club
CAT Records LP 50, 1983
Side 1 - 27 September 1975 - Recording Engineer Wik Horn
Side 2 - 28 February 1976 - Recording engineer Luc Ludolph
Incognito Blues (v. d. Gugten) - 4:34
Snake Rag (Oliver) - 4:18
Ton Van Brussel - cornet/vocal
Jacques van Ham - trombone/vocal
Fred Horn - cornet/clarinet/alto sax/baritone sax
Remco van der Gugten - clarinet soprano sax/alto sax/tenor sax/arr.
Ruud Ditmarsch - clarinet/alto sax/tenor sax
Peter Rijkhoff - piano
Dick Klijn - banjo
Piet Peeperkorn - sousaphone
Ger Booiman - drums
Produced by Fred Horn & Rob Heeck for CAT Jazz Records
Sleeve design by Ger Booiman & Fred Horn
Sleeve notes:
In September 1981 I received a letter from the U.S.A., in which Edward H. Reynolds of Harrison Records asked me if there were still recordings of the Limehouse Jazzband available. Harrison Records is one of those American labels, run by a fanatic amateur, which of late have been aiming too at the European traditional jazz scene. Bob Erdos's Stomp Off Records, for which we recorded our latest LP, "Rhythm Is Our Business," is another of those small recording companies.
Since the band could, because of tragic circumstances (the passing of Jacques van Ham), not comply with such a request at the time by going into the recording studios, Rob Heeck and I started to dig into some unused--mostly accidentally--recorded material still lying around. The technical quality of most of it appeared to be inadequate, as a result of the recording circumstances and backgrounds. However, two of the sessions had produced very fine material. At the time one of these recordings had been intended to be used for a "live" LP (on CAT); the other one took place during the celebration of our tenth anniversary, when my brother Wik had his tape recorder running to record a souvenir for me. As we had, technically speaking, enough material now, the next step was to select the recorded tracks on musical quality, variety of repertoire, etc.
The selection compiled by Rob and me this way was sent to the U.S.A., but unfortunately Edward Reynolds was only interested in tunes never previously recorded by the band. Since we were very content with the quality of the selected material and lamented the idea of putting the tapes back on the shelf again after all the trouble it took to select them, the idea occured to us to release the record on CAT. As the CAT label approached the release of its 50th LP record, Rob suggested using these recordings for the jubilee LP-50.
When you read this, all those suggestions have been transposed into a tangible product, which can be put on your turntable.
Once there this "Limehouse Live" will give a retrospect view of the band of 1975/76 and above that the extra atmosphere of a live performance. The personnel still is the nine-piece forination from after our first expansion from 7 to 9, which led to the change of the band's name into Limehouse Jazzband. Most pieces have been released before on the several LPs and single recorded by the band, but the arrangements are different because this LP-50 by and large comprises the first version of every piece.
"Stockholm Stomp," for instance, for almost 10 years the bands theme tune, differs from the version on CAT LP-4 "Daddycated," because meanwhile Ruud had replaced Gerard Wehrmeijer. The tune's later version on our Stomp Off LP is a revised arrangement for the 10-piece band. Just like the arrangement of "When You're Smiling," it was extended and several passages were rewritten.
"San" and "Sweet Emmaline" do not appear on earlier records. It seemed a nice idea to include two versions of "San," since the two performances of the same arrangement sound so different.
CAT LP-38 "Walk That Thing" features varying versions of "Saturday Night Function" and "Incognito Blues," but here the original arrangements can be heard. Especially with regard to these pieces as well as in "Shout 'em Aunt Tillie" on SOS 1014, it is pleasant to discover the variances between the tracks released on CAT LP-50 and the earlier (released, but not recorded of course) records. There have been quite some changes in these pieces relating to the allocation of the parts and the instrumentation, while notwithstanding all that the overall color of the arrangement fundamentally has not been changed.
As for "Stevedore Stomp" and "Limehouse Blues," I readily leave it up to the listener to discover the differences from the recordings on CAT LP-17 "Limehouse Jazzband and Victoria Varekamp." Anyhow, the versions on "Limehouse Live" sound hotter owing to the live recording.
The charm of such a live performance can be experienced very well also when listening to the last track, "Snake Rag." The band's good friends know that this tune also featured on the single serving as an admission ticket for the 10th anniversary celebration.
Summing up the above one could feel inclined to arrive at the same, in our opinion wrong, conclusion as did Edward H. Reynolds, about whom I told you at the beginning. In that case one would overlook the spontaneity of jazz music, all performances being different from one another. The stimulating effects of an audience and the interaction with the public that can never be present in a studio would be overlooked. In our opinion it's exactly this unrestrained atmosphere that sparkles from every groove, and Rob and I thought that we would not be allowed to withhold that from you, the listener to this "Limehouse with a difference."
--March 20, 1983
Fred Horn
Early in 1966 the then committee of the Haarlemse Jazz Club (one of its members, by the way, being Ton van Brussel, who had founded the Limehouse Seven a year before) decided to start a series of gramophone records. On June 25th the first recording session took place, featuring the longtime house orchestra of the H.J.C., the Midgetown Jazzband. Acoustically separated by blankets, cardboard and other advanced technological materials, trombone player Hans Herwarth's seven musicians (among them reed player Ruud Ditmarsch) recorded four tracks. Those four, "Harlem Rag," "Yama Yama Man," "Sobbin' Blues" and "It's Tight Like That," were released on CAT EP-l later that same year.
During 1967 I joined the committee of the Haarlemse Jazz Club, one of Holland's best known and oldest, and following the resignation of president Willem Arnaud de Calavon, who had been the originator of the project, I made the record project one of my responsibilities.
Unhampered by a complete lack of knowledge of either jazz music or recording techniques, in 1969 I produced CAT's second EP, featuring the Ferdinand Povel Quartet, at the time another of the H.J.C.'s house bands. The alternation of concerts in the traditional and modern jazz idioms had always been--and still is--one of the characteristics of the club's program, and, true to its origins, the CAT label never limited itself to any particular jazz idiom either.
In September 1969 the third EP was released, a reissue of two 78s from 1934 featuring Freddie Johnson and Lex van Spall & their Orchestra.
The occasion of the release was the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Haarlemse Jazz Club, and the reissue, CAT's only one to date, was intended as an homage to Eddie Crommelin and his Haarlem Hot Club, whose initiative had led Decca to produce the originals in the Thirties.
After that we had to wait for a long time trying to earn back our investments by selling EP records to, as we found out pretty soon, jazz fans more interested in LP records. In the meantime the record project had been entrusted to an organization formally separate from the jazz club, the now defunct Stichting Cat Jazz Haarlem. This establishment also organized concerts by foreign bands and soloists and some of its concerts were recorded for the local hospital broadcast (a.o. the Ben Webster concert, the tapes of which were later used for CAT LP-11). One of the recording technicians, Theo Kohler, showed interest in our record plans and, being an employee of the Haarlem branch of CBS Records, he had the right connections to get us a very favorable deal for the production of our first LP.
On April 7, 1972 CAT LP-l was recorded at Luc Ludolph's studio in Nederhorst den Berg. Once again the record featured one of the house orchestras (since the 1969 jubilee) of the Haarlemse Jazz Club, the Limehouse Seven.
And then Lady Luck smiled on us. Or rather, the jury of the International Traditional Jazz Festival Breda confirmed the correctness of our choice. Within a few weeks after the recording date, even before the record had been released, the Limehouse Seven won the competition which is part of the festival. As a result the first batch of five hundred records was sold within two months' time and we could order another pressing. Since then the Limehouse has always been one of CAT's best selling orchestras, only the Freetime Old Dixie Jassband's sales outnumbering those of the Limehouse. The success of CAT LP-l enabled us to produce two records in 1973 and then another four during 1974, one of them, CAT LP-4, another artistic and commercial success by the Limehouse (in the meantime Jazzband). Noteworthy, history repeated itself during that year, when the String & Brass Band won Breda shortly after recording CAT LP-5. Other Breda victors to be heard on CAT, by the way, are the Minerva Jazzband (LP-13 & LP-40) and the Hot Dogs (LP-41), while Herman Dijkstra's Friends of Jazz (LP-2) won the 1972 Loosdrecht Jazzfestival; those bands, however, were recorded after their competition successes.
In the meantime CAT has released records by internationally famous jazz musicians like Ben Webster and Bud Freeman. Among the names in the CAT catalog are well known traditional and modern Dutch jazz musicians as well as foreign bands like the Sidewalk Hot Jazz Orchestra from Germany and Charquet & Co. from France. CAT records have been distributed--although in small quantities, it still is strictly an amateur label and organization--all over the world, from Drente to Japan and the U.S.A. But, although the label was originated in 1966 and the present-day Stichting Cat Jazz Records in 1974, after another organizational change, the real start of CAT took place in 1972 when LP-l was recorded and released. Hence there could not be a better way to celebrate the milestone of 50 CAT LP records then by releasing a record featuring the Limehouse as it sounded at that time.
Alas, as far as I know there are no usable unissued recordings by the Limehouse Seven in existence, so we had to make do with the tapes by the nine-piece band from the LP-4 period, which were, so fortunately, rejected by Harrison Records. A small incorrectness, perhaps, from a historical point of view.
Musically speaking, however, a vast profit, because the Limehouse Jazzband in the form it is featured on CAT LP-50 must be one of the best traditional jazz bands ever to have recorded for CAT. As you undoubtedly will have noticed yourself by now.
--April 11, 1983
Rob Heeck, producer CAT Jazz Records
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