JACK SELS / MINOR WORKS: A legend of Belgian Jazz and a highly influential figure on the post-war Belgian jazz scene

One of the legends of Belgian Jazz and a highly influential figure on the post-war Belgian jazz scene, Sels died in 1970 at the mere age of 48, and he remains the country’s most mythical jazz musician, almost fifty years after his death. Throughout his career, he would play with jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Lou Bennett and Lucky Thompson, but he remained virtually unknown outside Belgium due to his reluctance to leave Antwerp.

Released 31st August on 2CD, vinyl and digital formats, ‘Minor Works’ is a collection of rare, previously unreleased studio and live recordings paying homage to the life and jazz of the enigmatic musician. Often overlooked by a wider audience, partly due to a limited discography, his contribution to the development of the modern jazz scene in Belgium cannot be underestimated, and neither can his influence on his fellow musicians, to whom he was the embodiment of jazz. As vibraphone player Fats Sadi once said: “I loved Jack. He had never studied music and didn’t have the least bit of technique. But if Jack played, the gates of heaven opened. Jack was more jazz than jazz itself.”

  

2CD, vinyl and digital release includes 12 previously unreleased studio tracks and 8 unreleased live tracks from highly influential post-war Belgian jazz saxophonist.

Born 29th January 1922, Sels was the only child in a wealthy family. His father Joseph, whom he referred to as ‘The Boss’, held a high position at the maritime company, John P. Best. He was predestined to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a businessman himself, until the early death of both his parents changed everything.

  

As a young adolescent, he inherited the family fortune which he spent in no time on everything in life that’s good: girls, champagne and jazz records. By now an avid jazz fan, Jack accumulated a notorious collection of original 78 rpm jazz records which ran up into the thousands. A family legend goes that one day he bought all the tickets of Antwerp’s famous cinema Rex, and handed them all out to passers-by on the street. “He was a millionaire, but he gave everything away,” explains Jack’s son-in-law and close friend Willy Van Wiele. “He hung out with people of a lower social class and adapted to them, instead of to the rich.” Jack’s good life however, ended with a bang when a World War II bombing destroyed the family house, including his precious record collection and everything else he had.

  

But this setback was not going to stop Jack from indulging even further in his love for music, and he began to study piano, and then taught himself the tenor saxophone while spending as much time as possible listening to his jazz idols, among them the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, trumpeters Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.

  

The arrival of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band at Antwerp in 1948 made a lasting impression on Sels as well as the legendary Birth of the Cool sessions by Miles Davis’s nonet, which were crucial for his further development, and he decided to start his own big bands including the All Stars Bop Orchestra, including a young Toots Thielemans, and the Jack Sels Chamber Music Orchestra.

  

In 1951, he travelled to Germany to perform for the American troops, and after his return to Antwerp he played in basement pubs, dance halls and jazz clubs and would later compose the soundtrack for the film ‘Meeuwen Sterven in de Haven’ (Seagulls Die in the Harbour) by Roland Verhavert.

  

In 1959, he supported Nat King Cole and had the opportunity to perform with his idol Lester Young in Brussels. Later, a career working on radio programmes for the NIR, then later BRT, was short lived due to the musical restraints held upon him.

His first and only studio album came in 1961 and featured American musicians Lou Bennett and Oliver Jackson and young Belgian guitarist, Philip Catherine. However, on release, the sleeve failed to mention the famous artists involved in the recording and the album didn’t bring the long awaited breakthrough Sels craved, who had already given up on his jazz career by the time it was finally released.

By 1966, Sels’s working opportunities in jazz had become so slim that he was forced to start working at the Antwerp harbour, where he helped to unload boats. During this period, he rarely performed in public anymore. Besides the irregular local gig, he occasionally appeared in schools and cultural centres, illustrating lectures about jazz history by jazz critic Juul Anthonissen. Instead he devoted his time to writing music, which he did on a small harmonium.

It was while making music, sitting at his harmonium, that Sels suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on 21 March 1970. Once one of Belgium’s foremost modern jazz musicians, he died in poverty, largely forgotten and after a turbulent life.

Tracklisting:

CD1

1.      Spanish Lady

2.      Ginger

3.      Nick's Kick *

4.      Dorian 0437 *

5.      La Campimania *

6.      African Dance

7.      Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise *

8.      Blues For A Blonde

9.      Blue Triptichon *

10.   Rain On The Grand'Place

11.   Night In Tunisia *

12.   Minor Works

13.   Tchak-Tchak *

14.   Invitation *

15.   Minor 5

16.   The Preacher *

17.   Dong *

18.   Gemini *

19.   It Might As Well Be Spring *

Previously unreleased *

CD2

1.      Night In Tunisia (Live)

2.      Taking A Chance On Love (Live)

3.      Zonky (Live)

4.      Blue Monk (Live)

5.      Swingin' The Blues (Live)

6.      Walkin' (Live)

7.      Unknown Title (Live)

8.      Broadway (Live)

All tracks previously unreleased