Jan Laurens Hartong

Jan Laurens Hartong (1941 – 2016). was a Dutch pianist, composer, arranger, teacher, founder and bandleader of Nueva Manteca. Hartong was a pioneer of the Dutch Latin jazz scene, he was also a musicologist and author.

Biography Youth Hartong was born on the 5th of November 1941 in Amersfoort. With his father he went to concerts by Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner. His aunt Corrie Hartong knew the mother of Pim Jacobs and arranged that Hartong got piano lessons from him. Led by Pim Jacobs, he discovered the secrets of Modern Jazz. His idols were Wynton Kelly, Les McCann and Ahmad Jamal.

In his youth he first came into contact with Latin American music. "I was about twelve years old, I played quite a bit of piano and loved bebop. One day my brother came with a Cuban lp by Cal Tjader. When I heard that, I was sold."

As a 16-year-old, he founded a jazz trio with Ruud Jacobs on bass and Cees See, later Han Bennink on drums. They performed a lot, including in the jazz cellar Persepolis in Utrecht and De Benelux in Hilversum. In Salzburg he met his wife, the Egyptian-Swiss opera singer Diana Zaki, with whom he gave classical recitals together.

1970–1979 In 1974, Hartong began studying musicology at the universities of Utrecht and Amsterdam. With his graduation, he became the first doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology in the Netherlands. From 1975 to 1980, Hartong was attached to the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam as deputy curator of the Music Department. Hartong organized, together with Edy Martinez and Tito Puente, concerts and workshops for the Tropical Institute. Bluesongo with, among others, the Bluesongo composed by Hartong in 1994. In the same year their instrumental Latin-jazz version of Porgy & Bess also came out. His composition Something in Blue ended up on the 1994 Double Dutch album of the Ben van den Dungen/Jarmo Hoogendijk Quintet (both of whom were band members of Nueva Manteca at the time). In 1994 Hartong played with Nueva Manteca at the KLM Jazz Festival in Curaçao, Euro Jazz Night, the International Music Festival in Leeds and for the first time at the North Sea Jazz Festival, where the band performed 4 times over the years. In 1994 Hartong played with Nueva Manteca in Nick Vollebregt's Jazz Café in Laren. A recording was made of this concert, which was released on CD under the title Live At Nick Vollebregt's Jazz Cafe.

The American record boss Bruce Lundval heard the band play in the Netherlands and decided to release the album Let's Face The Music And Dance with Nueva Manteca.

In 1997 the world premiere of Hartong's religious composition Afro Cuban Sanctus took place during the Musica Sacra Festival in Maastricht. In 1998 the band released the studio album Nightpeople with, among other things, the Nightpeople composed by Hartong.

2000–2010 With Nueva Manteca, in 2002, Hartong released the studio album Congo Square: Tribute to New Orleans and in 2003 Latin tribute to West Side Story

In 2005 he started the jazz trio Alliance with Peter Ypma (drums) and Marius Beets (bass). They released the album Trio Alliance – Standards Straight Ahead, with live recordings and new studio recordings.

In 2006 he published his book Musical Terms Worldwide, in which musical terms and essays on Western and non-Western musical traditions can be found.

2011–2016 In 2011, a second religious composition by Hartong, Requiem para el Mundo, was performed in Israel on his seventieth birthday with the Israeli vocal group The Vocal Octet. In 2013, Hartong released the live album Live 25 Years – Nueva Manteca with Nueva Manteca. As a result, Hartong wrote the following:

"The primary mission of Nueva Manteca is to further develop and strengthen its own artistic signature, to break through conventions, and to continue to make a substantial contribution to the development of the Latin jazz idiom worldwide and in the Netherlands in particular. Since its founding in 1987, exactly 25 years ago, Nueva Manteca has been distinctive from the outset and has become an internationally acclaimed institution with a clear position in talent development. Young talents regularly get opportunities from the band to gain practical experience at home and abroad."

In 2015, Hartong and Nueva Manteca release the latest live album Crime!, including Ciao City composed by Hartong.

Discography

Albums with Nueva Manteca Varadero Blues (1989) Afrodisia (1991) Bluesongo (1994) Porgy & Bess (1994) Live At Nick Vollebregt's Jazz Cafe (1994) Let's Face The Music And Dance (1996) Afro Cuban Sanctus (1997) Nightpeople (1998) Congo Square: Tribute to New Orleans (2002) Latin tribute to West Side Story (2003) Live 25 Years – Nueva Manteca (2013) Crime! (Live) (2015)

Album with Trio Alliance Standards Straight Ahead (2005)