Music of Belgium

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Belgium is a cultural crossroads where Flemish Dutch-speaking and Walloon French-speaking inhabitants mix with German minorities and immigrant communities from Republic of the Congo and other distant countries.

Vive la Fête, a Belgian electropop group
Vive la Fête, a Belgian electropop group

Contents

[edit] Classical Music

[edit] Romantic Music

[edit] 20th Century

Since the 1940s the Belgian gipsie Django Reinhardt became one of the first important jazz musicians to be born in Europe, and one of the most important jazz guitarists of all time.

In 1949 Toots Thielemans joined a jam session in Paris with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and others. He moved to the US in 1952 where he was a member of Charlie Parker's All-Stars. Toots Thielemans is often credited by jazz aficionados and jazz critics of being the greatest jazz hamonica player of the century.

Bobbejaan Schoepen is a pioneer in Belgian vaudeville and popmusic since the late 1940s. Not only was he the first Belgian singer to manage an international breakthrough, he was also the first to use modern equipment, a personal tourbus and a system of artist sponsoring. He also introduced the first country & western recordings in the Low Countries and Germany.

[edit] Folk music

Belgian folk music has survived the 20th century much more effectively than folk traditions in most other countries due to the efforts of ethnomusicologists early in the century. In the 1950s Bobbejaan Schoepen recorded his own absolutely crazy folk music often singing in the dialect of his native Brussels. He was also a a virtuoso whistler. Consequently, there was an ample repertoire and documentation of traditional Flemish music in the 1960s and early 1970s, when people like Wannes Van de Velde, Herman Dewit, Walter de Buck and Hubert Boone led a folk revival. Some of these musicians, especially Van de Velde, modernized Belgian folk music by using self-penned urban songs using influences from Spain and Greece. Wannes, for example, sang in the dialect of his native Antwerp and collaborated with Amparo Cortés, a Spanish flamenco singer.

The 1970s saw increased popularity of modernized folk music, with bands like Rum and Hubert Boone's influential Brabants Volksorkest. During the 1980s, folk became less popular, with only a few folk-rock bands like Kadril achieving much success, but Herman Dewit founded an annual music course in Gooik which kept the scene alive. In the mid-1990s, groups like Ambrozijn, Fluxus, Marc Hauman & De Moeite, EmBRUN, Laïs emerged from these yearly events.

Walloon folk music has not had as vibrant a revival as Flemish, but artists like Coïncidence, Remy Dubois, Luc Pilartz, Rue du Village and Claude Flagel have kept the folk traditions alive.

[edit] African music

Since the early 1980s, African musicians have played an important part on the Belgian scene, especially those from the former Belgian colony of Congo. Congolese-Belgian Princesse Mansia M'Bila, Rwandan-Belgian Cécile Kayirebwa and Dieudonné Kabongo led this wave that soon incorporated Argentinean tango music, Moroccan oud and other music from around the world. The 1990s saw the emergence of Zap Mama, a group of Congolese-Belgian women who played a fusion of Pygmy and other African music with European influences.

[edit] Electronic music

[edit] Indie scene

Flanders has a lively indie scene, sprouted from Antwerp where dEUS is probably the most famous, next to other people and groups like Zita Swoon (formerly Moondog Jr), Kiss My Jazz, Dead Man Ray, Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung. In the noise genre Antwerp houses the pioneer band Club Moral. Ghent also has a booming indie scene: de Portables, Barbie Bangkok, Absynthe Minded, Fifty Foot Combo, ’t Hof van Commerce (immigrants from Izegem), Vive La Fête, Das Pop, Awaken and the successful Soulwax bring indierock with a slightly rougher edge than their Antwerp fellows, while The Vogues (Brussels) have a British-influenced sound.

[edit] Chanson

The greatest French chansonnier was Jacques Brel but others like Salvatore Adamo, Pierre Rapsat, Arno, Maurane and Lara Fabian have enjoyed some success in other French-speaking countries.

[edit] Jazz

Some major jazz musicians have come from Belgium. These include:

[edit] Blues

Elmore D who sings in English and Walloon languages. Soulsister is another blues band, which, after breaking up in 1995, saw former member Paul Michiels contributing to the genre as a solo artist.Tomahawk Blues Band "A trip with Tomahawk Blues Band" experimental movie 35 mm by Marc Lobet. It's a Brussels blues band formed by Luc Hensill, Michel Clement and Robert Chabre dit L'Eclair.

[edit] Trip-Hop

Hooverphonic is one of the most famous trip-hop band of the world and can be considered as one of the most important Belgian band of these last years.Ozark Henry (a great success in whole Belgium) and Airlock are Belgians as well.

[edit] Rock

[edit] References

  • Rans, Paul. "Flemish, Walloon and Global Fusion". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 25-30. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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