MAXWELLS - MAXWELL STREET 1969

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 university. Lasse and Jørgen studying Law, Børge and Svend Åge Medicine, Lars Biology, Torben Literature and French, Kjeld Music at the Royal Conservatory and Niels Nuclear Physics at the Ørsted Institute, while Bent, 10 years older than the others, had finished his studies in English and History.
Everything had been going smoothly as they were able to adapt their studies 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 being a very popular pop rock band with all the trappings to a band that experimented with all the new things that appeared in these years. The long cascades of dada poetry mixed with absurd snippets taken out from conversations in daily life 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 Danish dogma 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 and 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".
(http://www.longhairmusic.de/maxwellsenglish.htm)

Tracks:

Esther
Free to Be
Make It Brake It
- Beni Riamba
Maxwell Street
What's a Smock
What Did She Do ?
Flower Powder
Memories Of Lorca
Biafra

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