Rudy Balliu

Born during the time the Nazis had over-run his native Belguim, Rudy Balliu developed into a musician who dedicated himself to preserving the music of the past, a point of view he has adhered to fairly rigidly his entire career. It is safe to say most anything he plays comes from an era at least a few years previous to his conception, a fact born out by band names such as the Hot Six, the Society Serenaders, and the Original Flemish Ragtime Orchestra. This is not to slight the Roof Band, a Ghent combo he played in at the age of 16, or to deny a hurrah to the Yarra Yarra Band, an Australian outfit with whom he toured five years later. Balliu began his career as a trumpeter, it was this instrument that he played in the Roof Band, and the quality of his playing may have been the reason the group was forced out on the roof.

His switch to clarinet happened in 1965, quickly accompanied by some reputation-establishing collaborations with serious traditional jazz players such as Alton Parnell and <a href="spotify:artist:5IG0S4sVqO1wFhrWG45oXe">Kid Thomas</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:1hVUCfxr3ghuegx1bEQgS9">Barry Martyn</a> featured Balliu in his 1974 revue entitled

A Night in New Orleans, promoting the clarinetist as someone who could musically evoke an atmosphere far away from the land of pale beer and stinky cheese. Following several of the previously mentioned combo affiliations in the late '70s Balliu finally got opportunities to record as a leader beginning in 1983, including a tribute to his mentor <a href="spotify:artist:5IG0S4sVqO1wFhrWG45oXe">Thomas</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:1hVUCfxr3ghuegx1bEQgS9">Martyn</a> continued to be a bandmate decades later with the two co-leading a new, but of course musically old, version of the Society Serenaders. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi