# Chris Abelen toured and recorded with the Contraband, from his former teacher Willem van Manen, and with other dutch bands: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/09/29/chris-abelen-toured-and-recorded-with-the-contraband-from-his-former-teacher-willem-van-manen-and-with-other-dutch-bands-video/
- Published: 2018-09-29T00:07:38+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**29.09. – Happy Birthday !!! Chris Abelen (born on 1959 in Tilburg, the Netherlands)
is a jazz trombonist, composer and bandleader. Abelen started his professional career
as a member of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. When he left this band in 1988 he 
started his own bands. All compositions for these bands are written by Abelen, from
a jazz quartet to a big-band.**

Chris Abelen started, as many trombonists, with the trumpet (at the age of 11). 
At the age of 18 he switched to the trombone. He studied classical trombone with
Charles Toet and Henri Aarts, and after 4 years switched to Amsterdam to study jazz
and improvised music with Willem van Manen, former 1st trombonist of the Willem 
Breuker Kollektief. When Van Manen left, shortly replaced by Garrethy List, Abelen
started to perform with the Kollektief in the summer of 1984. After extensive touring
with this band he left at the beginning of 1988, to start his own band, and to perform
with others.

The first band was the Chris Abelen sextet, with Tobias Delius, Bo van de Graaf,
Wilbert de Joode, Martin van Duynhoven and Jan Kuiper. Their first perfomance was
on the Klap op de Vuurpijl,a festival organized by Willem Breuker, between Christmas
and new year’s eve in Amsterdam. Unfortunately the Dutch Radio Broadcast Corporation
lost the recordings fo this concert. After some concerts Abelen decided to continue
with a quartet, so Kuiper and Van de Graaf left the band. The Chris Abelen Quartet
performed once, for a VPRO radio broadcoast in O42 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
From this recording the title track Plint is on the EP Plint (CAMP 005), with a 
great tenor solo from Delius. After this one-time concert Abelen decided to replace
Martin van Duijnhoven by Charles Huffstadt, and asked Corrie van Binsbergen to join
the quintet. They started in the studio with a recording of Dance of the Penguins(
1996). A 2nd album was recorded live in 1999, What a romance. Before starting this
Chris Abelen Quintet, Abelen was commissioned for a 2nd time to write for the Klap
op de Vuurpijl for a 10-piece band, with Ab Baars, Paul Termos, Frans Vermeerssen,
Eckard Kolterman, Eric Boeren, Larry Fishkind, Michael Vatcher and Wilbert de Joode.
Years later (in 2002) Abelen decided to release these recordings and produced his
3rd album PROOST (dutch for ‘cheers’). The 4th album, Space, was recorded with the
quintet, a string quartet (Zapp) and Ab Baars on clarinet. In 2016 Abelen released
his 6th album, A day at the office, for a septet with a new line-up, with Angelo
Verploegen, Floris van der Vlugt, Tini Thomsen, Thijs Huijbens, Ulrich Wentzlaff-
Eggebert and Yonga Sun. This album is part of a new project which Abelen is working
on with Bastiaan Geleijnse, a Dutch cartoonist (Fokke en Sukke), who is writing 
the text and lyrics. In 2018 Abelen produced and released Songs on the eve of dismissal,
vocal by Lorena del Mar.

Beside his own bands Abelen toured and recorded with the Contraband, from his former
teacher Willem van Manen, and with other dutch bands, such as I Compani, Paradise
Regained Orchestra, Eric van der Westen Octet, Dick de Graaf Septet. Chris Abelen
is also working as a professional engraver (Finale/Apple), for publishers as Boosey&
Hawkes (London), Donemus, Universal and for orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Asko/Schönberg, Metropole Orchestra, Radio Philharmonic
Orchestra and others. Abelen started with digital engraving in 1992, when Willem
Breuker needed some help with his Atari.
 Composers among others Louis Andriessen,
Martijn Padding, Willem Jeths, Geert van Keulen, Elmer Schönberger, Bernard van 
Beurden, Willem Breuker.

![Картинки по запросу Chris Abelen trombonist](https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlrVhQKk0nzR_3cEOLKlEgN7042h7U7q-DCESm5W2crXVgpcvwmw)

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