Windmills and World Music
The Netherlands as musical gateway to Europe
by Stan Rijven
Latin and salsa
Viewed as a country with several musical rivers running through it, the concept of a Dutch delta figures prominently in the Latin and salsa scene of the Low Countries. When salsa arose at the beginning of the seventies in New York as a fusion of North American jazz, with Cuban and Puerto Rican music, a parallel sauce was simmering in Old Amsterdam.
But here it was between Dutch, Surinamese and Dutch Antillean musicians. The orchestras led by saxophonists Rosa King and Hans Dulfer were breeding grounds for such musicians as the steelpan drummer Mr. Slim, drummer Eddy Veldman and guitarist Franky Douglas. In the nineteen eighties the bands run by singer Edsel Juliet, bassist Vincent Henar and keyboardist Jan Laurens Hartong took over this talent scout role in their respective groups of Latin Touch, Fra Fra Sound and Nueva Manteca. It was mainly outside the Netherlands that they received response for their own musical developments of Salsa Corriente, Paramaribop and Cubop.
 Nueva Manteca turned out to be a stepping stone for such top percussionists as Nils Fischer, Geraldo Rosales and Lucas van Merwijk, who in 1995 formed his own Cubop City Big Band. Rosales went on to form his own groups and play in Rumbatá. This band included musicians from all over Latin America who had settled in the Netherlands, including female vocalist Beatriz Aguiar from Uruguay.
In 2000, the group Panchito from Rotterdam took up the baton with their smoking Latin jazz renditions. The rise of Dutch Afro-Cuban music has not just flourished on stages. It has been part of a nationwide network of salsa dance schools and parties, a Latin American department at Rotterdam Conservatory and the magazine Oye Listen which ran from 1993-2003.
Delta pop
For the time being, the end result of this music history sketch can be heard in a wide-ranging world music scene. Within that scene Arabic folk and American blues fuse into arabicana (No Blues), a Brazilian singer meets German electro (Zuco 103), Maputo mixes with Rotterdam (Neco Novellas) and punkers provoke the John Coltrane of Ethiopia (The Ex & Gétatchèw Mèkurya). They are just the tip of the iceberg of world music musicians starting to rise from the musical landscape of the Lowlands anno 2008. All of which makes for a new genre: delta pop from the North Sea.
Translated from the Dutch by Scott Rollins
Notes
(1) A. Coret - Melodieën en Muzikanten (De Haan, Zeist, 1965)
(2) Tuney Tunes (december 1958)
(3) Muziekkrant Oor (maart 1989)
(4) Congo and South Moroco (Philips-427.004 NE)
(5) Dutch Rare Fol k (Food For Thought-7060157)
(6) Riba Dempel - Pop ular Dance Music of Curaçao 1950-1954 (Otrabanda-OTB03)
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