Franco Saint De Bakker | fr

Heaven Hotel proudly presents the new album by Franco Saint De Bakker, to be released the first week of March 2010! After releasing “Live at the Ancienne Belgique” (2005) and 'Live at the Ancienne Belgique II' (2006), the band chose to name it’s new creation… 'Live at the Ancienne Belgique III'! It will be the third and last part of the “Live at the Ancienne Belgique” trilogy…

The seven-piece terror jazz-combo -sounding sweeter than ever, though- once again recorded everything live at AB in September 2009. The group initially concentrated on re-working jazz compositions by Charlie Parker, Sonny Clark, Mal Waldron a.o. After three albums, things seem to have changed. Apart from “Song Of The Universe”, composed in the sixties by the rather obscure organ player Baby-Face Willette, most of the album consists of original compositions. The result is surprisingly cheerful. Jazz is still the main root of the band, which we can hear clearly in “Leila”, a kind of tribute to Ornette Coleman/James Blood Ulmer. The rest of the tunes keep a lot of the improvisational aspect of jazz in mind, but are also influenced by African pop music, folk, 60s soundtracks (e.g. John Barry), etc. After making their own version of “No One Knows” (Queens Of The Stone Age) and “Blue Monday” (New Order), the new cd has another all-time favourite to become a Franco-classic: Richard Berry’s “Louie Louie”!

Meanwhile the personnel line-up of Franco is more impressive than ever with a.o. founding member Elko Blijweert (Wim Vandekeybus, Tip Toe Topic, The Rudy Trouvé Septet, ex-Kiss My Jazz,…), Karel De Backer (Novastar, ex-Dead Man Ray, …), Joris Caluwaerts (ex-Zita Swoon, The Go Find) and Rudy Trouvé as special guest composer/musician.

Guests during live performances:
Rudy Trouvé (Heaven Hotel) vocals
Saar van de Leest (Tip Toe Topic, Traktor, Capsule,…) clarinet
Tim Van der Poel (Autistik Youth, Almanak,…) vocals
Stefaan Blancke (Flat Earth Society) trombone
Wolf Eriksson (van Maxon Blewitt, Hank Van Damme, ex-Zita Swoon, ex-Tumbleweed, ...).

Franco Saint De Backer is one of the best jazz bands in Flanders according to jazz standards. When you don't find it in your local shop just visit this site: http://www.heavenhotel.be/

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