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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Fud Candrix Part 1..................

Fud Candrix


I attempted to translate this from a Belgian website: http://www.erfgoedceltongeren.be/product.php?prodid=187&catid=42&lang=NL, so I appologize if their are any mistakes.....
Jazz music, which originated around 1900 in the United States, blew after World to Europe. In the story of the European jazz Belgium plays a central role. One of the biggest Belgian jazz musicians of all time was Fud Candrix (1908-1974).

Alphonse Marie Alexis - Fud - Candrix was born on July 17, 1908 Tongeren, Born into a musical family. He began his musical studies in his hometown. After his compulsory education his parents sent him to the Liège Conservatory, for music theory and violin. After his studies, he followed his brother Jef to Brussels, where he immersed himself in jazz. He was a very talented tenor saxophonist and be asked to perform in Belgium and abroad (Algeria, Germany, France, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands).

After he had fulfilled his military service in 1934-1935, he founded his first band. In that period also began a long collaboration with the German label Telefunken. During the mobilization he was  leader of the orchestra of the Werk Koningin Elisabeth, for musical entertainment for the Belgian soldiers. In 1940 he founded a big band, which became the most successful band he ever led. They played at home and abroad.

After the war was the band broke up He remained, however, active and with orchestras.  He died on April 12, 1974 in Brussels. Fud Candrix was a brilliant bandleader and a very talented tenor saxophonist whose style recalled those of the American jazz musician Fud Livingston - hence his nickname.



 
The Belgium bandleader and saxophone player Marie Alexis “Fud” Candrix was born on July 17th, 1908 in the idyllic countryside of the village Tongeren. After school, he started to study violin and music composition at the conservatory of Luik (Liège). During his studies Fud Candrix tried to start a career like his elder brother Jeff, who used to be a successful bandleader and saxophone player in Brussels during the Twenties. He followed his brother to the Belgium capital to learn clarinet and saxophone in the style like his famous idol Coleman Hawkins, whose records both brothers collected.
 
After a while Fud Candrix became such a virtuous player on the tenor sax that he was able to give concerts in France, Algiers and Morocco. Due to his aggressive style of blowing the saxophone he was nicknamed “Fud” after the Red Nicholls saxophonist Fud Livingston. Back in Brussels in 1930, he was hired by the bandleader Charles “Chas” Remue and toured with his band to the Netherlands. In 1932 Fud Candrix made his first attempt to found a Jazz band. He hired the black saxophone player Willie Lewis and the Belgium trumpet player Gus Deloof, with whom he continued working for many years. 

In 1933 the Candrix Brothers’ Orchestra was founded. The band was inspired by the repertory and playing of the famous American Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra. Their co-operation ended after only one year due to Fud’s military service. 

After the service Fud Candrix started leading a new dance band and they had the chance to play in the “Lac aux Dames” Café in Belgium’s summer spa Oostende. Throughout the winter the young and successful orchestra performed in the “L’heure Bleue” dance club in Brussels.

Felix Faecq, a Belgium talent scout, encouraged Fud Candrix to record the jazz tune “The Oldest Swinger In Harlem” and sent it to the German record label “Telefunken”. They offered him a six year contract and started a series of American Swing tunes with the Candrix Band. They were a great supplementation to the labels exclusive Jazz dance orchestras: Heinz Wehner’s Swing band and Teddy Stauffer’s “Original Teddies”. BBC substantiates Candrix’ high standard by broadcasting “this fantastic European Swing discovery” in December 1937.
 
Although Fud Candrix is known as a saxophone player, in the summer of 1938 he made one single recording that is very exceptional: he played the old standard “I’ve Found A New Baby” on the violin. By using the same phrasing as he did on the saxophone his improvisation is very unique. The great jazz violin players of the Swing era Stéphane Grappelly and Joe Venuti used their own techniques so that Fud Candrix created a personal handwriting even by playing on strings.

Another non-typical recording is “Teasing The Piano”  by “Coco”: Colignon on piano and just the Orchestra’s rhythm section. Colignon plays in a single note style like Count Basie who inspired many other Swing pianists with his own minimalistic style. 

In the summer of 1938 the Candrix Band was reorganized to perform at the Blankenberge spa: the singer Tony “Young” Jongenelen replaced Wally Sluyzer, Gaston Backaert took over the guitar. Until World War II normally the band played in this casting of a ten musicians orchestra. In the spring of 1939 the band’s soloists formed a Swing Septet to make one recording with the Belgium jazz singer Anny Xhofleer, “Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea” .
 
With the beginning of the war in the fall of 1939, the Candrix Band broke up. For a few months Fud Candrix lead an entertainment orchestra for the troops’ special services.

In 1940, during the German occupation in Belgium, Fud Candrix was allowed to establish a new band. Apart from some of the former musicians like Gus Deloof on solo trumpet, Lou Logist on sax and Louis Melon on second trombone joined the band. Maurice Giegas and Lucien Devroye were added to the brass section,  Jeff de Boek, himself a bandleader, took over the drums in the new Candrix Orchestra. Tony Jongenelen sang a little German, and the Japanese singer Jane Miller, who sang solely in English, joined the band.
 
In the summer of 1942 the Candrix Big band performed in Berlin’s “Delphi-Palast” for two months. The orchestra showed all its know-how by not only playing German songs in hot arrangements, but also Swing compositions written by members of the Candrix band. Original titles were translated to harmless German names: “Harlem Swing” became “Moderner Rhythmus” (“Modern Rhythm”) and “Metro Stomp” became
“U-Bahn Fox” (“Subway Fox”). 

Fud Candrix suffered from Nazi censorship. His recording of  “U-Bahn Fox” from May of 1942 was forbidden, his singer Jane Miller was sent back to Belgium and the whole orchestra was forced to play just “good German dance music”. In June of 1942 a few German “Schlager” (pop songs) were recorded, featuring the retired singer Paul Dorn. This seemed to be a kind of “excuse” to the political system, but this was the lowest Swing Music level the Fud Candrix Orchestra ever recorded. 

After the war, Fud Candrix continued playing with several combos and tried a comeback during the Dixieland revival in the Fifties. He was finally respected as one of the biggest Belgium Jazz musicians shortly before his death on April 11th, 1974 in Brussels.



Interestingly, I could barely find any biographical information on Candrix.....and certainly nearly nothing in English. Sad, because personally his bands have to rank in my list of the most swinging of the period. So swinging that I think they leave most of the comparable American bands in the dust.....an arguable opinion, I'm sure....but I dare you to listen to them and not think HOT DAMN THEY'RE GOOD!! so there....lol....gauntlet down.....Fud Candrix KICKED ASS. :)


Here's part 1............


ABC (w/ Django Reinhardt) 
After all these years
All you want to do is dance 
Always
Am Potsdamer Platz (AKA) Place De Brouckere
Amapola
American Patrol
Anticipate that rhythm
At a Dixie roadside diner
At the woodchopper's ball
Aubade
Back room
Bei dir war es immer so schön
Belleville (w/ Django)
Blankenberge
Blaue Küste
Bluebird in the moonlight
Broadway shuffle
Corrine Corrina
Cotton pickers congregation
Could be
Cross country hop
Dein ser mund de kleine Frau 
Dixieland detour
Doggin' around
Du hast mir gerade noch gefelt
Eine kleine uhr in meinem herzen
Eisbrecher
The Donkey serenade


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R99QPYFF

5 comments:

  1. OK,
    I guess this is just as good a place to start a Comment as any other, although I stopped here,
    1. it's current, I don't know if you read comments from great posts made 18 months or so ago... I always wondered about that...
    2. Fud Candrix? WTF? I guess I am allowed not to know who he is, although obviously, YOU DO!

    I am amazed and charmed and overwhelmed and in awe at this web-blog, blogspot, whatever you call it... I guess Planetbarberella is what you call it. It's an amazing planet filled with
    1. An almost umimaginable collection of great music, popular culture, local color and (very important) really charming and intelligent guide.
    That's what all good blogs and books and articles and lectures in college are. A great background, a fine intelligence, and some panache in the presentation.
    Goofyness and pop culture too. Like your early PoonTang selections for the "horndogs"... just sayin'. Horndogs and corndogs.
    All that German, all that Belgian (?)... whoa, I don't remember anybody else in outer-Chitown doing that. Blues, R&B, claro. But your range is more than Western "on the range..." it's Mid-Western Off the Reservation, and Way-Down-Range...
    Or something like that.
    I guess Planetbaraberellea is where it's at.

    Consider me a confirmed (tho I ain't done the ceremony... ie... tacky lucre for the "work" yer doin'... but hey, I plan on it, right after I pay my local jazz radio station, WNCU, Durham, NC a few dozen dollars for their operating budget.

    Nuff said.
    I'm a fan.
    I don't do facebook or the other social media.
    Why?
    This is why. It's so much more. But I'm in,
    and finally,
    Lady Barbarella,
    A multitude of thanks and greasy chicken smiles for all the fun and frolic you have laden the world with here.
    It's worth it. A legacy for your kin, and a treasure trove that still, right up to the beginning (going backward) almost all still keeps givin'....

    YOUSA!

    Den NC USA

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW!! That's as good a Thanks as I could ever hope for!! really!! Btw, I do try to catch every comment that gets posted, and respond....I find out so much great info when I do....I love to see people's reactions to certain things....I'm not always sure if folks will like, or "get" what I do, so it's very satisfying. I'm kinda just bipolar about how I post.....sometimes I will just set my media player to "random", hear an artist and start digging out what I have by them....then start a post about that. I've got a lot of music, so it's easy sometimes to start an idea that way :)

    Thanks, again....Oh, and any requests? have at it....I might have it or be able to find it :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. OK, thank you Queen Barbarella for the comments.
    I am still here on your planet, and many thoughts are running through my head. But mostly, again, with due admiration, I am amazed at the range of interest and appreciation on your part for so many genres (funny we Americans don't have good words for so many things, and use the French or legalese, like consenting partner, or domestic arrangement, or significant other... for "girlfriend" when that friend is 67...Whatever!)
    So, again, not to get too deep or personal on ME, but I'm nearing the age of a famous McCartney song, and I have studied media since ... OTR, cylinders... the history of recorded sound, not professionally, but like you, as an informed (highly, since I was at Woodstock, for real, and forgot that a photographer took pictures, and I was in the Rolling Stone 20th Anniversary issue... what are the chances?..) Your vast collection, sharing of same, the points of taste and appreciation you bring to US ALL in your writing, the love of life that it has enhanced, your family, teen sniffing and (OK, hate Nirvana.. fun) spirit of BOZ, and Slim and the greats of swing, the WONDERFUL personal runs of songs about the darndest things... some sadly dead now. All the times and places... though some have changed... We loved them all. And your work here, like your antiques knowledge, is a big, vast work of media history and personal POV. The issues of rights and laws and so on, that no author (other than historical phrases of plagerism, Doris,,,) of fiction is concerned with. Yet you jaunt on. And it all is amazing. It blows my mind. It is worthy of a PhD dissertation as a pure and glowing and deep product of YOU and the 20th Century.

    HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR? (He shouted in blue CAPS with the Durham Bulls logo on it)...

    Yes, hundreds of us get it. Because of you and your love of all things cultural and familial and real, and imaginary and XTC and TOTO, too!

    So, from Hillsborough NC with love,

    DEN NC USA

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm looking for the recordings of Fud Candrix 1941 in brussels
    Villégiature ? Fud Candrix and his Orchestra
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26180 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10424
    Jetty's Lieblings Melodie Fud Candrix and his Orchestra
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26181 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10438
    720 In The Books Written By - Savitt
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26182 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10423
    Studio 24 Written By - Engelen
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26183 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10428
    Jumping High (Freudensprünge) Written By - Engelen
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26184 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10438
    Reviens ? Fud Candrix and his Orchestra
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26185 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10411
    Verlaine Written-By - Trenet
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26186 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10425
    Es Kostet Nichts ? Fud Candrix and his Orchestra
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26187 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10411
    Happiness ? Fud Candrix and his Orchestra
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26188 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10424
    Amapola Written By - Lalalle
    Brüssel 20.11.1941 - Matrix: 26189 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10425

    and Blankenberge

    Amour Et Jazz ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    Janot Morales, Maurice Giegas, Lucien Devroye (tp) Louis Melon, Nick Frérar (tb) Bobby Naret, Benny Pauwels (as,cl) Fud Candrix, Vic Ingeveldt (ts,cl) Lou Logist (ts) Ivon De Bie (p) André Mersch (g) Gene Kempf (b) Jeff De Boeck (d) Yvan Fadel (vcl) René Simon (vcl)
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26190 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10396
    En Balayant Le Parquet ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    Yvan Fadel - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26191 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10396
    J'aime, J'aime, J'aime ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26192 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10401
    Soyons Fou ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26193 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10401
    N'en Parlons Plus ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26194 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10399
    C'est Dimanche ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26195 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10399
    On S'en Fout ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26196 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10398
    Chanson De Ma Jeunesse ? Fud Candrix et son Orchestre
    René Simon - vcl
    Blankenberge, November 21, 1941 - Matrix: 26197 - Order Nr.: Tel A 10398

    heinz.becker@netaxis.ca

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  5. Hmmm.....I will see what else I can find

    ReplyDelete