Did you know that Dutch colonists brought Jazz to the islands ? It was considered emperialistic as it was from the West.
Some of the earliest jazz performers were the Indos (Dutch-Indonesians) in the 1930-1940's. Click on green title above for link to article from the Jakarta Post newspaper.
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My grandfather Han Samethini was one of these Indo jazz musicians. During the 1930s he played the piano and accordion for John Kiliaan and His Band. I have photos of Kiliaan's band at the Hotel Centrum (now the Hotel Tugu-Blitar in East Java). By the late Thirties he had his own band: Samethini and His Spirituals.
I am very interested to find any information on the jazz scene in colonial Java. I wish I had questioned my grandfather about it while he was still alive.
As a comment on the picture above, these are some of the guitarists (and at least one bass player) from Han Samethini's postwar band in Bangkok (1945-1946). All of them are liberated Dutch Indo POWs waiting to go home to Sumatra and Java. The venue seems to be the "Garrison Theatre" (actual name of the building unknown).
The band was usually known as Samethini's Boys, but in at least one incarnation they were called the Atomic Boys (accompanying Samethini in his virtuouso "Atomic Accordion" performance). Hard to believe the atomic bomb was considered fashionable and "hip" in late 1945, but people soon learned enough to fear the new invention.
I am looking for information regarding the P.M.Y. Jazz Clovers,the band leader was Frans Muller and the singer was my cousin Gerda Lucardie.
Are their Columbia records still for sale?
I am trying to get a recording of a Indo band called Jacquline and the Rhythm Boys. My father Étienne deJong was the lead guitarist. Can anybody help me.??
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