The story behind Double ‘O Jazz
As you might have read in the project’s history, DJazz started in 1998 … and so did the creation of 2 of the tracks on this EP: “Double ‘O Jazz” and “Hip cHops”.
Roel started with composing and producing these 2 tracks during the time he studied at the Constantijn Huygens Conservatory (nowadays Artez) in Zwolle, the Netherlands. Roel was living in a student building specially for musicians and together with his neighbors he frequently listened to music and jammed, besides studying of course. One of those evenings in 1999 Roel recorded Bertolf playing his guitar on “Double ‘O Jazz” and another time also Rutger Renden on bassguitar for “Hip cHops”.
Bertolf, (guitarist, vocalist, composer), guitarist and co-composer on “Double ‘O Jazz”.
The voice of Daniel Craig used in the track “Double ‘O Jazz” was sampled from the James Bond movie “Casino Royale”.
“Double ‘O Jazz” includes several small orchestral sample cuts from various James Bond Movies.
Rutger Renden, on bassguitar for “Hip cHops.
Vocal & flute samples used in the track “Hip cHops” were cut from Roland Kirk’s “Hip Chops”.
A percussion-loop was cut from Santana’s “Tales Of Kilimanjaro” (Pasqua, Armando Peraza, Raul Rekow, Santana) – 3:24
Roel didn’t finish the tracks though, after pauzing his study due to serious health issues he immigrated to Bulgaria in 2001 and stopped playing and working on DJazz for several years. It wasn’t until 2009 before Roel booted the project up again, working on some of the tracks again at Studio 21. This was also the period the project got it’s final crew, besides Roel also: Miro Petkov (trumpet), DJ Jijo & DJ Emotion (turntables) and Ivan Boyadzhiev (studio engineer).
In 2011 Italian percussionist Vito Giacovelli stayed in Bulgaria for a while and became a member of the JazzProfilactika European Trio.
In this period Roel also recorded Vito playing percussion on several tracks, one of them “Duck Dis Drunk Dromedary” is included in this EP.
The voice of Clark Terry from the NYPL Schomburg Center jazz oral history (interviewed 15 September 1993) was used in Nu-Frisco-Funk.
The sampled Sousaphone lick played by Philip “Tuba Phil” Frazier used in “Nu-Frisco-Funk” was taken from Maceo Parker’s “Mercy, Mercy Mercy”.
In 2013 Canadian trombonist Etienne Lebel stayed a while in Bulgaria, where he studied Bulgarian traditional ethnic music. He also featured in local bands in Varna, playing together with Roel, among many others.
The crew continued working on a variety of tracks, resulting in the release of the single “Ain’t So Blue” (2012) and
At the end of 2014 Roel stopped performing live due to serious health issues, but continued with the studio work. The “Summertime In Bombay” EP was released on January 22, 2015.
The project came yet again to a hold before finishing the “Double ‘O Jazz” EP, when Ivan Boyadzhiev (core member, sound engineer and Studio 21 owner) passed away on 16.06.2015 †.
In the following years the project stayed on hold. At the end of 2019 Roel recorded some scratches by Jijo for all tracks of the EP except for Yo Sco, the scratches by Jijo and Emotion had been recorded in 2015 before the project was put on hold.
In 2020 Roel moved back to The Netherlands and pulled the DJazz archive to see what should be done with some of the unfinished work. During 2020 he finalized the editing and mixing of 5 tracks (there are 4 more in the archive that require more work though). He contacted Frederic of 432EVO.be to convert the mixes to 432Hz.
Sadly Core member Todor Zhelyazkov aka DJ Emotion passed away on 02.01.2021 †, before the EP was finished and released.
In 2021 The EP was send to Angelos “Timewarp” Stoumpos, the owner of the label Timewarp Music and Timewarp Mastering for the mastering of the tracks and preparations for the EP release on 09-04-2021.
The “Double ‘O Jazz” EP will be released in memory of Todor Zhelyazkov and Ivan Boyadzhiev.
