About the band

Though the name “Never Mind Jazz Band” makes you expect something different, this band garantees you a performance with a remarkable choice of repertoire, well arranged, full of surprising solo’s and vocals which mobilize every member of the band. During the first years of it’s existence, the band used to drop in at parties, just for fun. This still explains the name! Today, after 27 years, the band is well respected amongst hot-jazz lovers. The initial idea soon made place for a serious and authentic approach of the jazz of the Twenties. The original arrangements will always be respected – like they should be! – however the way they are played always leaves room for the characteristic “Never Mind sound”. One thing has never changed: the band enjoys playing as ever before! The repertoire mainly takes you back to the small black (and sometimes white) bands until 1930, such as Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five/Hot Seven, Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators, Bix (Beiderbecke) & His Gang and Jabbo Smith’s Rythm Aces. But also the early big bands from that period will not be forgotten. Henk Velema’s arrangements of the music of the Fletcher Henderson band, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra and Duke Ellington make the six-piece band sound twice as big. Up till now the Never Mind Jazz Band played in most of the Dutch jazzclubs and at jazzfestivals in Holland and was invited to festivals and to play concerts in Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Denmark and on the beautifull Isola del Garda, Italy. In 2003 the band was also invited to the jazzfestival of Nanching, China, but unfortunately this trip had to be delayed due to the SARS-problems in that country. In 1988 the band won the first prize at the classic-style jazzcontest of the The Hague Jazzclub, which resulted in a performance at the world-famous North Sea Jazzfestival in The Hague, that same year. The NMJB never took part in a jazzcontest again untill May 2004, when the band won the Highest Mountain Jazz Award of the Jazzclub Vaals, Holland.