MP3 Harm van Sleen - Bassman's Holiday
Part singer/songwriter, part Americana/roots music, part slick jazzy popsongs, as unlikely a mixture of styles as Top 40 radio used to be.
14 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Americana, POP: Folky Pop
Details:
The album features 14 songs, covering a wide range of musical styles that incorporates country, bluegrass, jazz, blues, gospel, folk, Steely Dan, Little Feat and Frank Zappa influences. The diversity of styles isn''t very common on record albums today, but is of course familiar to anyone who enjoys listening to various artist compilation albums. Perhaps this album resembles what would be my favourite radio music show.
Three songs were recorded at home with me playing all the instruments, six were recorded at home with lots of help from some of my favourite musicians (including Erik Rutjes, Frido ter Beek, Peter Kalisvaart, Chris Barchet, Harriet Middelhoek, Arjen van El and Xandra Zijlstra) and five were recorded live in a recording studio in Amsterdam with a motley collection of musicians (including Dicky Greenwood, Mr. Boogie Woogie, Steve Grams, Danny Krieger, Wouter Kiers, Peter van den Bos, and Inigo Grimbergen) who recorded this batch in a single afternoon session without any rehearsal. The result is an album that isn''t intended to be a showcase of technical perfection, but rather a document of musicians having a good time in their living room.
Who am I? Well, I''m a Dutch singer/songwriter, bass player, pedal steel guitarist, and music teacher. I spent my childhood in many different countries including Syria, India, Algeria, Zambia, and the USA. My early influences were the albums in my parents'' collection: Chopin, Schubert, Nina Simone, Gerry Mulligan, Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan, The Beatles - a small but eclectic collection. Started playing the guitar at age 6. When living in Brookings, South Dakota, I was encouraged to play acoustic bass in the string orchestra and electric bass with the jazz band and the high school chorus, and thus discovered my first love: the BASS. I joined various bands, and started writing my first original songs.
After obtaining my diploma at the Conservatory of Hilversum in 1989, I joined, on bass, Jaap Dekker''s Jazz & Boogie Set (from 1989 - present), Capelino (from 1993 - present), Mr. Boogie Woogie & The Firesweep Bluesband (1994-2002), Dicky Greenwood Band (1995 - present), and more recently Anke Angel, Lisa Otey Trio, Wouter Kiers Trio, and Dirk Jan Vennik, and occasionally, as a freelance bassist, Rob Agerbeek, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Julien Brunetaud, Oene van Geel, Grams & Krieger, Kiers & De Vries, Philip Kroonenberg, Lils Mackintosh, Mazzeltov, Pee Bee & The Night Train, Pinetop Perkins, Frans Poptie, Sake, Tom Salisbury, Martijn Schok, Jeroen Sweers, Andre Valkering, Boris Vanderlek, Diane Van Deurzen, Dana Winner and many others.
In addition to my gigs as a bass player, I play pedal steel with The Lowlanders, Karen Neumann, Two In A Room, and studio sessions for Spinvis and others.
I''ve contributed to many albums (some of them available at CD Baby - check out the pages for Lisa Otey, Dicky Greenwood and Mr. Boogie Woogie!), performed at numerous festivals and concerts in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, France, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland, and the USA. Bandleader of THE SLEEN GANG. Solo cd Bassman''s Holiday; Sleen Gang cd In Harm''s Way.
Composer of songs for various projects, including a tutorial about the evolution of popular music Mag Die Radio Wat Harder?!!. My songs were recorded by Capelino, Mr. Boogie Woogie & The Firesweep Bluesband, Dicky Greenwood Band, and Lisa Otey. The song Gossip entered the Top 20 in the Unisong International Songwriting Contest in the Jazz/Blues category, and Brown Paper Bag received an honorable mention in the 13th Billboard World Song Contest. Several songs are featured in the musical Parijs and in various projects for elementary schools.
Bass teacher at Het Klooster (a music school in Woerden, the Netherlands). Freelance author for Bassmagazine.
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