In 2005, a few years after Nico van Grevenbroek left the Multicats, and having some problems with his health, he decided to put some serious efforts in making harmonica music again. His goal was to record a new album. When he told his cousin Aad de Haan about it, his reaction was; “if you need a chord player, you know where to find me.” And that was the beginning of “Harmonica Music Factory.”
It was not the first time the two musicians worked together. In the fifties Nico, at the age of nine, learned his first notes on the harmonica from his ten years older cousin Aad. Since there was little money in those years. Nico played an old chromatic harmonica, which Aad had given to him. With that instrument he joined the “Hotcha Harmonica School.”
Nico and Aad both grew up listening to Hotcha and Harmonicats records in a family with heart for the instrument. In those days Aad started a group, with Nico's father Toon, and some other relatives. They played harmonica music that was characteristic for that time. In the early Sixties Aad plays as Bass player in The Rascal Trio with Nan Broersma (melody) and Wim Kamerman (chords), later on Jan Rigter. In 1970 Aad, Nico and Toon formed “The Family Trio.” Six years later Toon was replaced by Frans Pauli, a former member of the Hotcha’s (1962-1969), and the two cousins finally decided to split up in 1978.
Since then Aad played in “The Oldtimers,” “The Multicats,” and from 1996 until 2010 in his trio “Nameless.” Nico kept on playing with Pauli. During the early nineties they played in “The Blue Cats” with Tom Hayes, bass player of the original Multicats. From 1996 till 2000 Nico joined “The Multicats” with Joop Winterberg and Freek Schenk, with whom he recorded the album “The Sound of the Harmonica.”
Now, many years later, Nico and Aad started to play together again, making an album that takes them back to those old harmonica classics. The album, “Looking Back,” therefore includes some Hotcha and Harmonicats titles and some arrangements from the time Nico and Aad played in “The Family Trio.”
And now they have made their Second Album “Tea for Two” with titles they played in the early days and some they have never played before.
"I can't give you anything but love" and "Tea for Two" are based on arrangements Joop Heijman wrote for the “Hotcha Harmonica School. "Somebody stole my gal" is an old Hotcha favorite and Mambo Jambo is known from the Harmonicats. "Walky Porky" is a composition by Jan Vuik, member /arranger of the Hotcha Trio. Aad and Nico played "El Condor Pasa" in their “Family Trio” time with the arrangement ideas of Aad, who also played "Il nostro concerto" with his Rascal Trio in the early sixties. It was an idea of their melody player Nan Broersma. "Who do you think you're kidding Mr. Hitler", "Cavatina", "Yellow Ribbon", “It's been a long , long time" and "Johnny one note" are new for Aad and Nico. Nico was responseble for the arrangements.
Harmonica Music Factory
