Week of February 15, 2004
Maxwells started out in 1963 as The Dragons. The group was
formed by Lasse Lunderskov (guitar), Jørgen Werner (electric bass), Børge
Mortensen (drums), Even Mørk Pedersen (rhythm guitar) and Lars Bisgaard (vocal).
They were all, apart from Even, attending the Danish Church School, where they
were trained in choral singing and obliged to sing in the Marble Church choir,
the church of the royal castle Amalienborg. The band had a repertoire consisting
of cover versions of hits by The Rolling Stones,
The Beatles, etc.
Their skilful singing earned them a reputation as a pop rock band and as such
they played a lot of gigs. In 1965, they changed the group's name to Maxwells
and the band shifted their direction towards a Motown style adding three horns
in 1966: Kjeld Ipsen (trombone), Torben Enghoff (tenor saxophone/flute) and Bent
Hesselmann (alto saxophone/flute).
Bisgaard and Lunderskov appeared in "The Beggars Opera" at Gladsaxe Theatre and
in "Superman" at the "Studenterscenen" late 1966. In 1967, Maxwells
performed the first psychedelic show in Denmark: "WE", a collage of scenes and
songs at the "Studenterscenen". Svend Åge Mortensen, elder brother of Børge the
drummer, constructed a whole set of light devices from gramophone motors, old
glass prisms and slide projectors for this performance. It was a sensation and
from then on the band worked with psychedelic lighting.
The intelligentsia took interest in the band, and contemporary composer Per
Nørgaard used the band members in his opera, "The Labyrinth", at The Royal
Theatre of Copenhagen. He also composed an original song for the group called "ABCDarian",
which was performed in May 1967, when Maxwells had their first TV
appearance in a show recorded at the museum of contemporary art, "Louisiana".
This was a real breakthrough and was followed by radio coverage and interviews
in all the pop magazines. Late in the summer of 1967 their first record, a
single including "Flower Powder" by Lasse Lunderskov and Bisgaard and "What
Did She Do?" by Torben Enghoff (Sonet 7250), was recorded at the Rosenberg
Studios.
From then on, the band started to add compositions by band members to their
repertoire. In the following years, between concerts and theatre engagements,
the band toured Denmark. In October 1967, Maxwells supported Frank
Zappa's Mothers Of Invention. For these concerts the band had composed a
"collage style" set. The set the band put together for these performances would
start with a recital of a Dada poem in a sort of acapella unison singing, slowly
developing into a wild climax 40 minutes later. The unique psychedelic lighting,
which developed together with the music from a red triangle, kept still during
the recital to a crescendo of rotating lights whipping the crowd into a frenzy!
It was an instant success, and the audience, as well as the critics, favoured
Maxwells as the best band of the concert, which was a bit unfair to The
Mothers, who had played the gig using Maxwells' instruments, as their
equipment was sent to Lapland by mistake.
In December 1967, Niels Harrit (tenor saxophone/ flute/ Wurlitzer piano) joined
the band. They could now change the set-up during performances. Niels usually
played a Wurlitzer, but when playing soul standards like "Pots'n'Pans", "I
Feel Good", etc., he would switch to tenor sax, while Enghoff would take up
baritone sax, and Hesselmann would either play alto or soprano sax on top of the
horn section with Ipsen's trombone on the base line.
In January 1968, Maxwells were hired by the Montmartre jazz club to play
Monday nights, which they did for longer periods the following year. In August,
Lasse and Bent wrote and recorded the music for "Le Chat Botté" at The Little
Theatre, the first theatre for children in Denmark. In September, the entire
orchestra played as musicians and actors in the first performance of the musical
"Hair" at Gladsaxe Theatre adding to the original score with a strip theme by
Hesselmann, original music to the song "The Bed" by Lunderskov and a
collective "Trip Music". In October, the band started rehearsals with
contemporary Danish composer Niels Viggo Bentzon, followed by concerts and a
recording session in November, which produced the single, "Memories of Lorca"/"Biafra",
both by Bentzon (additional musicians: Erik Moseholm (contrabass) and Ingolf
Olsen (Spanish guitar). Philips PF 355350).
In January 1969, German jazz critic Joachim Ernst Behrendt heard the band in
concert at the Danish Film Academy. He was so enthusiastic about the band that
he signed them to record a session for MPS Saba in Villingen, Germany. This
session took place over 4 days in June, with Behrendt as producer. The LP, "Maxwell
Street", was released in September of the same year (MPS15242).
At the end of 1969, two things happened that would later trigger the beginning
of the end of Maxwells.
All the band members were attending a university, Lasse and Jørgen studying law,
Børge and Svend Åge - medicine, Lars - biology, Torben - literature and French,
Kjeld Music attending the Royal Conservatory and Niels - studying nuclear
physics at the Ørsted Institute, while Bent, 10 years older than the others, had
already finished his studies in English and history.
Everything had been going smoothly, as they were able to modify their academic
schedules to suit the band's activities, but then Niels had to move to the Max
Planck Institute for radiology in Mülheim and stay there for more than a year.
Furthermore, Kjeld was told to stop his professional work immediately or he
would be expelled from the conservatory and miss his degree as a first class
solo trombonist.
The band never recovered from the loss of these two versatile members and
although they tried with different additional personnel, it never really worked
as well as it had done before! In 1970, the rest of Maxwells played a
final concert at the Music and Light Festival in Skovlunde, North-West of
Copenhagen, joined by Dan Nedergaard (trumpet) and Frankie Jackman (congas). In
these 7 years, Maxwells changed from just a very popular pop-rock band
with all the customary trappings to a band that experimented with all new artful
trends that would appear during those years. The long cascades of dada poetry
mixed with absurd snippets taken out from daily life conversations were never
recorded. Neither were the long collective improvisations of up to 45 minutes,
as played at the Montmartre Mondays.
Reactions to the band ranged from raving, delirious enthusiasm to wrath and
anger over psychedelic art, twice resulting in smashed furniture and the band
getting beaten up! Being a forerunner always has its price - just think of
Stravinsky, who had to escape through a window to flee the threatening mob at
the first performance of "Le Sacre de Printemps" in Paris in 1911! But it was
worth it…
Today, Jørgen Werner works as a chartered accountant/counsellor of law, Børge
Mortensen is a parish clerk at the Royal Church of Holmen, his brother, Svend
Åge, is the chief anaesthetist of the heart transplantation centre at
Rigshospitalet, Lars Bisgaard is a school teacher, Niels Harit is a professor of
nuclear physics at the Ørsted institute and still plays in Big Bands and
occasionally as a soloist on records. Torben Enghoff is a composer and leader of
a quartet playing classical and contemporary repertoire. Kjeld Ipsen has been
touring the world with various artists such as Gloria Gaynor and still
works in Big Bands. Since 1970, Lasse Lunderskov has been working as an actor
with growing success. He played a strong character as Onkel Leif in the dogmatic
Danish film, "The Celebration", and has appeared in many TV programmes.
Lunderskov still plays guitar in his own band Rootbeat and works as a theatre
and film composer as well as a songwriter. Bent Hesselmann has toured Europe
with Rainbow Band and Midnight Sun and Denmark - with various groups and
theatres as a band leader and occasionally as an actor. He mainly works as a
theatre and film music composer. Together with Lunderskov, he has written two
books on the electric guitar and electric band equipment: "Beat Guitar" and "The
Book on Electric Instruments". Lunderskov and Hesselmann are also both board
members of the "Danish Songwriters Guild".
Taken from the CD reissue of "Maxwell Street", Long Hair LHC28, 2003