Fez Van Hugle's Poldermen

Fez Van Hugle’s Poldermen
‘Hugle On my Bugle, Dougal’/’When The Saints Go Huglin’ In’ Released 16th June 1960 Melodisc MRS 4517
Fez Van Hugle (Trumpet, Vocals), Sid Hollister (Banjo), John ‘Skins’ Simperton (drums), Lord Harris Tweed (Trombone), Dudley Butterfield (Bass)

For a brief period Dutch trumpeter Fez Van Hugle was the King of British Dixieland jazz. Alongside fellow exponents of the trad jazz style like Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen and Laurence Llewellyn Bowen’s Trad Dads, Fez (real name Thijs) Van Hugle rose to the top thanks to his skills as a hypnotist.

“It’s quite strange but no-one from that period can remember exactly what the band sounded like live”, says Jazz historian Bill Shepherd. “It seems Thijs used the power of hypnotism to create an illusion in the mind of his audience that he was actually talented, when, in fact, he wasn’t”.

At the time, Shirley Harper was a fresh-faced fifteen year old who snuck in to see Thijs at a famous Greek Street dive, The Priest Hole: “I remember the band coming out onto the tiny stage. I’d never heard a banjo before. It was all wild and new to me. Then this strange, tall red-haired man wearing a yellow turban with a flashing light in it walked out and stared at the audience. He told us in a very strong Dutch accent to ‘Focush on de loit’. After that, my mind’s a blank...”

It seems that, while Fez Van Hugle may have mesmerised his audience into believing they were seeing a great show, the British public were less enamoured of the group’s only single ‘Hugle On My Bugle, Dougal’. It failed to chart, due in part to Hugle’s desperate attempt to mimic a Scottish accent.

When the Trad scene faded away during the rise of Merseybeat, Fez Van Hugle moved into cooler domain – trying his hand at bebop. He formed the Van Hugle Heptet. This puzzles historian Bill Shepherd: “The interesting thing about a heptet is that no-one knows what it is. I imagined it was one up or down from a sextet, but apparently not”.