Composer and pianist Bam Commijs (Netherlands, 1953) has always worked, beside improvising and accompanying, at creating his own work. He learned the trade by playing with artists and musicians in the theatre, on jazz stages, and simply at schools and people's homes. Imaginative and narrative, his music remains specific in its wide diversity of styles and atmospheres. The following full CDs were released:
– Weird Rag
– Wiegeliederen Wereldwijd
– Van Slauerhoff tot Annie M. G. Schmidt
– En Voor Confectie Geen Figuur
Frankie, performed by the Dutch Swing College Band, was a prize-winning composition. Commijs wrote several pieces for the musical theatre, a suite for piano, a suite for piano and double bass, and hundreds of songs. Furthermore, he wrote the music for Dagrest, a short film by Caspar Commijs, and for various documentaries. Momentarily, he works at a series of ragtimes, in which the style of yore melts with the colours of today.
Swing Boss Music npo is a small Brussels-based music publisher – and, at times, production house – founded with the primary objective of managing the work of singer-songwriter Jay Conrad.
Yet, after its foundation, it became closely involved with Lyrae Records, Pascal Noël's jazz and world-music label, for which it took care of the publishing and negotiating with Belgian and foreign labels, e.g. agreements with Jaro Medien in Bremen, Germany, and with PolyGram Publishing for the vocal group Tam Echo Tam, and, from Italy, the rock band Giusi. It assisted Lyrae in publishing and producing albums of percussionist Chris Joris, trombone-player Phil Abraham, as well as horn player Fabrice Alleman's Duo with guitarist Paolo Loveri, and the Sierra Leonese soul singer Bai Kamara.
As a music publisher, Swing Boss Music co-produced, with D'Click Studios, Jay Conrad's album Steeltown Girls (produced in the studio by Conrad and Vince 'The Duke' Debongnie) which was released by Arcade Records. The art work for Steeltown Girls was done by Lyrae's Pascal Noël. Since Jay Conrad recently recovered the publishing rights of his first album, A Penniless Gentleman (produced by Dani Klein of the iconic Belgian group Vaya Con Dios for Tell It Like It Is/BMG-Ariola), Swing Boss Music now promotes the entire catalogue of Conrad's songs.
A new album – Carrizo Springs – based on the Spanish poetry of Raquel Lanseros (see Spanish Authors) is in pre-production, but its quality demos can already be listened to, like a selection of Jay Conrad's other music, on:
http://www.jukeboxalive.com/gkliphuis
RouteNote (UK) distributes
– A Penniless Gentleman &
– Steeltown Girls
to the digital stores of:
iTunes, Napster, eMusic, Deezer, Amazon Mp3, Thumbplay, DMS and Spotify.
Samples of the lyrics are found on the Jay Conrad Lyrics hubs.
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/JayConrad
