On the Spot – A PEEK AT THE DANISH JAZZ SCENE IN THE SIXTIES

ON THE SPOT – A PEEK AT THE DANISH JAZZ SCENE IN THE SIXTIES

„On the Spot vol. 2 contains what I consider the best and rarest
music in my collection. I began collecting jazz records some
twenty-five years ago, when I came across „Sahib’s Jazz Party“
at a flea market, and really dug the album. I soon wanted to
find out more about the long-lost Danish jazz scene, so I looked
up some of the old, real jazz cats and got them to talk. I
discovered that the scene here had been small-scale but lively.
The development towards modern jazz, what this compilation is
all about, had begun already in the early 1950s with bebop,
which was represented in Denmark mainly by saxophonist Max
Brüel, bassist Erik Moseholm and trumpeter Jørgen Ryg.

Small steps became giant leaps in 1961 with the opening of the
first Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen’s Store Regnegade. The
club developed into an intimate venue, modelled on the jazz
clubs of New York and Paris. From the very beginning, prominent
American musicians played there, and around the same time,
several of them even setteld in Copenhagen, where they found
both the musical and the social climate more appealing than at
home. Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and bassist Oscar Pettiford
had lived in Copenhagen already since 1958, and were later
joined by saxophonists Sahib Shihab, Dexter Gordon and Ben
Webster, and pianist Kenny Drew. Foreign musicians continued to
migrate in the 1970s, when, for example, pianists Duke Jordan
and Horace Parlan, percussionist Ed Thigpen, saxophonist Bob
Rockwell, and band leader Thad Jones joined the Copenhagen jazz
scene.

Instead of stifling their Danish colleagues, the American jazz
musicians inspired them. In turn, the Danish jazz scene of the
sixties is now a source of inspiration to musicians all the way
from Tokyo to Turin, and acts like Koop, Nicola Conte, Kyoto
Jazz Massive, The Five Corners Quintet, and Povo are all in debt
to the unique spirit of Jazzhus Montmartre. This compilation is
an attempt to give you a tiny peek into that amazing era.

On the Spot vol. 2 is dedicated to Herluf Kamp Larsen who opened
Jazzhus Montmartre on New Year’s Eve 1960.“

A-P Andreasen

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