Compilation box with long-lost recordings Toots Thielemans

When journalist Ton Ouwehand asked the question in an interview with Toots Thielemans twenty years ago who had influenced him the most, he got ‘Rob Franken’ as a surprising answer. Franken (1941-1983) was a pioneer in the Netherlands on the Fender Rhodes piano, the two musicians had met during the recording sessions of the film music by Paul Verhoevens Turkish fruit (1973).

Everyone knows the sound of Thielemans whistling and playing his harmonica from the film music composed by Rogier van Otterloo. Less known became Rob Franken, the man who played the electric piano so beautifully. Yet Thielemans and Franken have formed a duo for ten years since those sessions that brought out the best in both.

Franken invited the Belgian jazz great to participate in so-called Fumu recordings, which were led by Franken. Fumu is ‘Functional Music’, intended for supermarkets, hotel lobbies and elevators. Background music or muzak, to which the best Dutch jazz musicians in the better recording studios in the Netherlands collaborated.

Thanks to the efforts of the Dutch Jazz Archive, the long-lost recordings of Franken and Thielemans have been made obsolete. With the permission of the Toots Thielemans Foundation, the 59 pieces have been collected on a 3 CD set under the title Toots Thielemans Meets Rob Franken – Studio Sessions 1973-1983 has appeared in the unsurpassed Treasures of Dutch Jazz series.

It has become a release that sounds as pleasant as it is interesting. The duo swings wildly in their own composition Old Friend (1973) and ten years later moves with Nature Boy that Thielemans would play at Franken’s funeral not much later.

The many standards are not all equally essential, but That misty red beast experiences a nice, somewhat looser jazz version here than in Turkish fruit and you can hear how Franken and Thielemans respond better to each other over the years. About Franken Thielemans said: ‘His playing has become the most important of what they call the typical Toots style’. And you can hear it all happening here.