# Bobby Jaspar – Jazz was used by them almost as therapy to express the terror of brutality: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/04/07/bobby-jaspar-jazz-was-used-by-them-almost-as-therapy-to-express-the-terror-of-brutality-photos-videos/
- Published: 2019-04-07T15:10:32+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Jazz musicians in continental Europe who emerged in the 1940s held a special distinction.
They survived World War II in countries occupied by the Germans. **

Jazz was used by them almost as therapy to express the terror of brutality and the
joy of liberation. This certainly was true of the young Bobby Jaspar, a resourceful
Belgian woodwind player who would go on to become one of the most significant European
jazz musicians of the 1950s and early ’60s. Born and raised in Liège, Belgium, Jaspar
watched in 1940 as jazz was banned following the Nazi invasion.

In a strange twist, live jazz in Liège in 1941 was permitted as the city became 
an r&r retreat for German officers on leave. In 1942, Jaspar had heard enough and
decided to become a jazz musician. A year later, writes Fresh Sound’s Jordi Pujol
in his superb and detailed liner notes that accompany a new CD, Jaspar put together
his first nimble modernist jazz group, the Bob Shots.

[⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.24.19 PM⌉⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.24.19 PM⌉[
 After the
war, Jaspar began recording almost immediately in Brussels. First came an acetate
of _Don’t Be That Way_ and _I’ve Found a New Baby_ in 1945 as a member of the Orchestre
du Cosmopolite, a hotel house band. Then he recorded between 1946 and 1948 as the
Bob Shots (above), a septet that became something of a sensation. Jaspar then put
together his own quartet and recorded in 1948, ’49 and ’51.

[⌊Early-years-from-be-bop-to-cool-1947-1951-featuring-the-bob-shots⌉⌊Early-years-
from-be-bop-to-cool-1947-1951-featuring-the-bob-shots⌉[
 All of these formative 
recordings by Jaspar are now collected on one album—_Bobby Jaspar: Early Years, 
From Bebop to Cool _(Fresh Sound). The initial tracks in 1945 and ’46 are solid 
imitations of American swing recordings. But by 1947, Jaspar was experimenting with
bebop, recording _Oop Bop Sh’bam_ in February. The 78 pre-dates Hubert Fol and his
Be Bop Minstrels’s recording of _A Night in Tunisia_ in July, making Jaspar the 
first to record bop in continental Europe. Interestingly, the vocal is in French.

As radio host David Johnson pointed out in a 2016 show, “the seeds of bebop in Europe
had already been planted in part through a package of 78s received in 1946 by Charles
Delaunay, co-founder of the magazine Le Jazz Hot and former member of the French
Resistance.”

[⌊R-2130226-1393154545-6335.jpeg⌉⌊R-2130226-1393154545-6335.jpeg⌉[
 But the big 
turning point came in February 1948, when Dizzy Gillespie’s big band brought bop
to Sweden and Paris’s Salle Pleye theater. Months later in July, we can hear the
impact in the Bob Shots’s bop recordings such as _Boppin’ for Haig_ and _Boppin’
at the Dodge._ Jaspar also took a turn on a Coleman Hawkins-inspired _Body and Soul_
with soulful results.

Also recorded in July were _Our Delight_ and _Wee-Dot_ as well as _I Can’t Get Started_
using the same arrangement as Gillespie’s in Paris. Which means either Jaspar and
his band attended the concert or recordings of the concert were released in Europe,
enabling the novel arrangement to be heard and transcribed.

[⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.23.20 PM⌉⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.23.20 PM⌉[
 In 1950, 
Jaspar moved to Paris, the same year that Stan Getz’s solo on Woody Herman’s _Early
Autumn_ became a hit. By 1951, we hear Getz’s influence on Jaspar’s _Tenderly_ and
_If I Had You. _Jaspar’s swinging approach is distinctly lighter and higher and 
more patient, while _Bobby’s Beep_ is a lush original ballad. His composition _How
About_ is a musical mirror of Lester Young’s dry measured approach typically found
on Young’s Norgran and Verve recordings.

[⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.37.39 PM⌉⌊Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.37.39 PM⌉[
 What makes
this new Jaspar album interesting is hearing the musician’s roots and how he was
influenced by his his idols at given moments in time. Working through swing, bop
and the cooler approach of Getz in the early 1950s, Jaspar quickly became comfortable
in his own skin. By 1953, when Jaspar recorded _New Sound From Belgium Vol 4,_ his
singular swinging melodic approach is firmly in place.

Bobby Jaspar died in 1963 at age 37.

![Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 9.25.22 PM](https://marcmyers.typepad.com/.a/6a00e008dca1f088340240a49bf6b5200b-
500wi)

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