DOM Cultural Center

24 May 2006

After a couple of years, the New Cool Collective founded their Big Band extension. The band loved playing with the groovy 19-piece line up and once again the crowd went mad. So they initiated monthly New Cool events at an Amsterdam club, where the big band played with different guest musicians. At one of these events the Afro-drummer Tony Allen played with them. This party lasted for several nights and instigated the Afrobeat club tour of the New Cool Collective Big Band featuring Tony Allen and the kora-player Ali Boulo Santo.

New Cool Collective is a working band. The eight prolific musicians also play individually in various other projects but decided to take a break and meet up in a farm house in the Dutch countryside to record this latest album. The eight musicians relaxed, hung out and caught up. This album, Trippin’, is like their holiday report:

“Perry came about spontaneously around seven in the morning. Some of our songs originate from a Jam other songs start from a riff or a rhythm that one of us begins to play like Bambolé or Ms.Wilson. In the beginning Ms. Wilson was a just bass riff and a beat. We gave it its title on our trip to Uganda where we gave a workshop at a music school. Ms Wilson was the British music teacher who appeared to stem from the colonial times. She taught Beatles-songs to black Ugandan children and when we joined in she told us off: “no drumming, please.” So the song is our rhythmic revenge on Ms Wilson. Propeller surfaced as a sweet recollection of our Easy Tune & Soul Tune-days. Black Label we created because we needed a repertoire for the gigs with Tony Allen. Son of Chacha was one of our lazy afternoon discussions and Conga Yeye is the Cuban carnaval rhythm we indulged in at the end of a day.”

This is roughly how the New Cool Collective’s bucolic break turned out- as they were chilling out on the fertile jazz ground, relaxing to Afro-beat, enjoying the Latin-Caribbean soul food, and every now and then bursting out in an Easy Tune jam. Fully recovered, they knocked on the door of the independent label Dox Records and offered Trippin’ and five bonus tracks featuring Tony Allen. Dox Records reacted with pleasure: “Perfect! A trip like this is wholesome to anybody.”

With the new repertoire and on-stage enhancements (such as the 19-piece line up), the New Cool Collective has started up again. Last February the British Freestyle label released their 12’’ version of Perry. This Summer they’ll play at several European pop festivals including Roskilde, Lowlands and the Hungarian Sgizet Festival.

Later this year they’ll do a tour of the clubs in the Netherlands and travel abroad. The New Cool Collective continues to be a band that wins over the club scene as easily as they impress the Jazz audience - nationally and internationally alike. Soon they’ll have to return to that farm house in the countryside for the necessary musical ‘rest’ so the anticipated successor of Trippin’ may be born.

Discography:
‘Bring It On’ (Sony SML 5094382)
Single ‘Donde esta Jose’ (Sony SML 6730731)
'BIG' (Challenge- A Records AL 73164)
‘More…‘Soul Jazz Latin Flavours Nineties Vibes’ (Challenge Records AL 73118)
‘Soul Jazz Latin Flavours Nineties Vibes’ (Challenge Records AL 73087)
4 track EP (12" vinyl Club 802 records CL80202)
4 track EP (12" vinyl Club 802 records CL80203)
From the first 12":
'Flootie' compilation cd "It's a groove thang" (EVA 74321274022)
'Flootie' compilation cd "Hard To Get Hard To Beat" (CNR/HardtoGet 2001799)
'So Cool' (Short cut) idem
12” vinyl “Perry” / “Conga ye-ye” (Freestyle records/Kudos)