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The story of Valve started in an art deco lounge bar in Brussels,
called l'Archiduc. Bai loved the place and combined with
his big love for jazz made that he spent his time there often.
The owner, Jean Louis, didn't know he was a musician until
he saw Bai on one of the last TV Performances of Bai's former
band Odex Protocol. It was an impressive appearance and
enough for Jean Louis to talk to Bai about it the week after and
proposed to do something in l'Archiduc,
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This took
some convincing since Bai had no experience in jazz and felt, as
always, reluctant at first, but in the end ready to pick up the
challenge.
Bai spoke to Joe
Higham, a jazz musician who plays saxophone, in order to
see what could be done and get the right arrangements of his songs.
Together with the keyboard player from Odex Freddie Donche
and bass player Vincent Noiret, they founded the band. In 2002
Thierry Rombaux picked up the bass. |
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| Valve is the collaboration of four
talented musicians that take the soulful compositions of Bai Kamara
Jr. into a different dimension, which is much more jazzy. That's
why it has been described as Blues Soul with a Jazz vibe. |
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Since Bai was very skeptical if everything would work out and
if the band was going to hold, he called the band VALVE
(a device that does hold things together inside). The band did
hold together fine: the first two concerts were a big success
and since then they played in l'Archiduc every year, but now every
Saturday for an entire month.
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Eventhough Valve plays predominantly in l'Archiduc, there have been a few steps to introduce the band to different
audiences.
Secretely, there are even thoughts to record the work of Valve... but in all honesty, these are dreams for the future,
So the best bet to get a glimpse of what Valve has to offer, is to keep a close
eye on the concert pages and see for the next time around.
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