CHRIS ABELEN
Genres: Nu Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz • Netherlands

Chris Abelen (born September 29, 1959 in Tilburg, the Netherlands) is a jazz trombonist, composer and bandleader. Abelen started his professional career as a member of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. When he left this band in 1988 he started his own bands. All compositions for these bands are written by Abelen, from a jazz quartet to a big-band. Chris Abelen started, as many trombonists, with the trumpet (at the age of 11). At the age of 18 he switched to the trombone. He studied classical trombone with Charles Toet and Henri Aarts, and after 4 years switched to Amsterdam to study jazz and improvised music with Willem van Manen, former 1st trombonist of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. When Van Manen left, shortly replaced by Garrett List, Abelen started to perform with the Kollektief in the summer of 1984. After extensive touring with this band he left at the beginning of 1988, read more...