I’m a little too young to have experienced the philanthropic musical phenomenon that was Live Aid. Organized by Bob Geldof in 1985, the iconic charity concert raised over $100 million to help relieve a devastating famine in Ethiopia. One year earlier the pop supergroup Band Aid—composed of Boy George, Sting, George Michael, and other eighties idols—recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” which was, sadly, a staple of every single Christmas party I attended throughout my childhood.
The tone-deaf track raised a further $24 million, a sterling effort, but I despise it. A rubbish song, poorly sung, and the epitome of self-indulgent celebrity cringe, it didn’t even solve famine in Ethiopia. As of 2021 the food security organization IPC reported that three-quarters of that country’s population still faced the prospect of “high acute food insecurity,” a situation worse than in 1985. (Please imagine me slow clapping here.)
Why am I telling you this? Because I want to highlight a much lesser-known, much more measurably successful and frankly far superior charity record that I happened upon in a thrift shop this month. Released just one year after Live Aid, Jazz Against Polio was a collaboration between service organization Rotary International and the Reunion Jazz Band—something of a Dutch jazz supergroup—to benefit a project to eradicate polio worldwide, dubbed PolioPlus.
And do you know what? They more or less did. Rotary has raised $2.6 billion to fight polio since 1985, and the World Health Organization reported a 99 percent fall in cases from 1988 to 2021—crediting Rotary as a major factor in that success. Now, Jazz Against Polio quite possibly wasn’t the most consequential of the organization’s fundraising efforts, but every little helps. And, musically speaking, it was a darn sight better than that Band Aid dross.
The project was the idea of pianist Ton Hameeteman—himself a Rotarian, and the last surviving member of the Reunion Jazz Band—who was kind enough to send me a few lines reminiscing about the project. “Rotarians all over the world were asked to raise at least $1,000 each for Polio Plus,” he recalled. “So I had this idea for a record and we started on it in September of 1986, in order to get it out by Christmas.”
Ton described the response as “a superb Christmas present”: 50,000 copies sold, earning the band a gold record in their home country. Dutch sales alone netted Rotary International three-quarters of a million guilders in 1986—just under $1.2 million in 2024 dollars—and the record was sold in several countries.
Besides Hameeteman, the record features veterans of the venerable Dutch Swing College Band (DSCB): bassist Chris Smildiger, clarinetist/saxophonist Dim Kesber, drummer Martien Beenen, trombonist Wim Kolstee and trumpeter Wybe Buma. Founded in 1945, this long-lived outfit amassed fans around Europe, becoming famous enough to provide interval entertainment at Eurovision 1976. Smildiger, Kesber, and Buma were themselves bandleaders, while Beenen and Kolstee were multi-instrumentalists with roles in other outfits.
The other non-DSCB member on the disc was Pieter de Graaf, a banjoist about whom little can be found online. Records do indicate that most of the Reunion Jazz Band have passed away—Buma as far back as 1998 and Beenen as recently as May 2024.
Distributed internationally, the LP sleeve comes in several languages. Mine is in French and popping it into Google Translate revealed that the author, Bart van der Scheer, was a Dutch player whose career was cut short by polio. “It’s a disease that takes over you,” he wrote. “While I was the director of a successful company, I found myself overnight in the intensive care unit of a hospital, in unbearable pain and dependent on others for the slightest movement. It took me over a year to overcome this ordeal and try to find a normal life. Anyone who has not been paralyzed cannot have any idea of this terrible situation.”
Van der Scheer explained that the Reunion Jazz Band was the side project of several former DSCB players, who had chosen to go their own unpaid way when that outfit turned professional, preferring to play just for the fun of it. He praised Buma as one of “the great European jazz musicians” and Kesber as “one of the best clarinetists on our continent,” adding that “by listening to this recording you will take great pleasure, and by purchasing it you will serve an excellent cause which is that of eradicating [polio] from this world.” (The sleeve also noted that profits from each disc could be used to vaccinate 25 children.)
The author noted that the musicians weren’t paid for their time and that the disc’s manufacturers had done so at cost. So how did it turn out? Well, it’s everything I want from a jazz LP: standards I love in novel arrangements, impeccably played and superbly produced. Somewhat oddly, it opens with “When The Saints Go Marching In”—a number often used to close a set. It’s a lively rendition which introduces all the band’s members, building from a positively funereal brass intro via a locomotive piano section.
“Mon Homme” follows. The French standard is associated with the mononymic Mistinguett, chanteuse and actress—at one time the highest-paid female entertainer in the world. Rendered in English as “My Man,” it became a smash hit for Fanny Brice and was also recorded by Billie Holiday, who sang it in a minor key and at a more stately pace. Reunion’s is a more vigorous version with brass to the fore, carried along on Smildiger’s bouncing bass.
Things slow right down with Carmichael’s “Rockin’ Chair,” which plods along almost as slowly as Armstrong or Teagarden’s versions. It leaves plenty of room for Hameeteman to stretch out on piano—something I can always get behind, as you well know. “Kitty’s Dream” is a Kesber original, and as such is heavy on the saxophone. It’s bluesy with a boogie-woogie backbeat, evoking Louis Jordan—another easy way to win my favor.
The sultry Sidney Bechet standard “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me” is one of my favorite dancing tunes, so I was excited to see it listed here. Very satisfyingly, it’s like no other version I’ve ever heard. Opening with a ballistic stride piano solo, verse two sees all chime in at 120 bpm for a wild ride, culminating in a final barrage from Beenen’s drum kit. As a side A closer, it’s hard to beat for sheer sonic satisfaction.
“Sweet Georgia Brown” opens side B and again, the arrangement is a far cry from the galloping standard as played by Brother Bones, Django Reinhardt or Chris Barber. It opens at a leisurely trot, evoking sunset steamboat rides on the Chattahoochee River. When the pace picks up about one-third of the way in, only the trumpet and piano are involved. It’s not until halfway through the four-minute track that the whole band joins in and the arrangement approaches something familiar-sounding. I love it. “Black and Tan Fantasy” is also a languid take, compared with the Ellington original, accelerating only slightly towards its end, while “Canal Street Blues” is more or less as King Oliver played it.
“Stealin’ the Blues” is a DSCB original co-written by Kolstee, a fairly pedestrian twelve-bar with a repetitive brass riff and solos which aren’t massively imaginative—it’s the least impressive track on the album, to be frank. But album closer “African Queen” is a great rendition of a fifties trad revival number penned by Scotsman Sandy Brown. It’s a banjo-driven romp with a Caribbean flavor, some lovely harmonies and imaginative soloing—especially on the Reunion version, where Hameeteman really shines.
Taken altogether, Jazz Against Polio is a tremendous work with plenty of heart—both in its motivation and its execution. You can hear the whole thing on YouTube, or there are plenty of hard copies floating about online. I recommend buying the vinyl if you can, as it’s really worth hearing in the highest possible fidelity. (Bonus points if you can get it from a thrift shop, or send PolioPlus a few dollars.)
Ton Hameeteman told me he remained very proud of what the band achieved with Jazz Against Polio. “PolioPlus made it possible to rid the world of polio at the end of the twentieth century—a great success,” he wrote. “It’s a terrible disappointment to see now a revival of this dangerous virus.” Perhaps it’s high time for a Jazz Against Polio 2.
