Saturday 21st June, 5:00 PM – House of Hard Bop.
He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Griffin, Benny Golson, and many other Americans. He worked on more than 250 recordings. He mentions the tours with trumpeter/singer Chet Baker in Japan as one of the highlights of his career. Numerous national and international awards came his way, of which the Lifetime Achievement Edison (2025) is the most recent. Now more than 60 years ‘in the business’, John Engels still makes refined swinging music.
This programme zooms in on his period with The Diamond Five, 1957-1962.
In the 1950s, several hard bop quintets emerged in America, consisting of trumpet, sax and piano trio: the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. In the Netherlands, pianist Cees Slinger forms a quintet with the same instrumental line-up, which in 1958 functions as the house orchestra of the Amsterdam jazz club Sheherazade. Harry Verbeke tenor sax, Cees Smal trumpet and valve trombone, Dick van der Capellen bass and John Engels drums. Bassist Van der Capellen is replaced by Jacques Schols in 1959. In the same year, the group becomes co-owner of the club. Many American musicians, on tour through Europe, know their way to the ‘Zade’, near the Rembrandtplein. The quality and popularity of The Diamond Five rises to great heights. The club’s heyday lasts until 1962.
The Diamond Five Finally After Forty Years (Blue Jack Jazz Label) contains recordings from 1959, 1961 and 1962.
Diamondate (Cees Smal) is a spicy blues. The four-bar theme is repeated twice in the opening chorus. A familiar thematic formula within a blues scheme – think of Sonny Rollins’ Sonnymoon For Two. Verbeke takes the first solo, to which trumpeter Smal joins in melodically. Trumpet and sax form an “alternate” further on, and the wonderfully swinging drummer also gets his solo. A dazzling opening! The quiet standard Alone Together (Dietz & Schwartz), with its lyrical melody, creates a different mood.
Les Halles (Cees Smal) is another blues. Metrical ambiguity – to some ears even triple ambiguity – is a characteristic here. In the drum solo we now hear a different story.
Never Mind (Cees Slinger).
Jordu is a composition by the American pianist Duke Jordan. In the early 1950s, Jordu became a repertoire piece of the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet.
The Diamond Five come up with a surprising arrangement here. The beautiful melody is exposed by bassist Jacqes Schols, who then takes the first solo.
In Amsterdam Blues (Cees Smal) the drummer comes with a backbeat – accents on the 2nd and 4th beat – as we know from Art Blakey. But unlike Blakey, Engels has no need for a show of muscle. Bohemia After Dark (Oscar Pettiford)
Lita’s Dance (Cees Smal)
You and the Night and the Music (Dietz & Schwartz)
10. L.M.R. (Cees Smal)
The closing track of this hour comes from the CD Brilliant! (Universal Music) from 1964: the very appropriate Johnny’s Birthday. An attractive up-tempo composition by Cees Smal who solos here on valve trombone. The form is A-A’, both sections of 16 bars.
House of Hard Bop – Eric Ineke
A few weeks ago, programme maker Hajé Nordbeck dedicated a broadcast to Harry Verbeke and the Diamond Five.
