A record-store boss, a guitarist and a lounge album that went gold

Barend Fransen was the president of a Dutch record-store chain when he started writing lounge music in Belgium in 2001 with guitarist Ferdi Lancee. Together they became Gare du Nord, a jazz duo known on stage as Doc and Inca. Lancee played guitar, Fransen played saxophone, and both of them sang. Signed to Play It Again Sam Records in Brussels, they released (In Search Of) Excellounge in 2001 and Kind Of Cool in 2002.

The music travelled well beyond the clubs. Their songs reached the soundtracks of Six Feet Under and the film Ghost Rider. In 2003 a newly formed nine-piece band took the material on tour through the Netherlands and Russia. Their third album, Club Gare du Nord, was recorded in their own studio in the Netherlands, with French trumpeter Erik Truffaz and the gospel singers of the American Imani Fellowship Choir as guests. Around 2005 Fransen left the record chain to give the band more time.

Sex 'n' Jazz, from 2007, opened what they called a love trilogy. It carried “Ride On” with British singer Paul Carrack, vocals from Dutch singer Dorona Alberti, and a track featuring Marvin Gaye. A golden record for the debut had arrived in April, and the new album earned a second in October, handed over by fashion designer Marlies Dekkers, who also designed the cover of the 2009 follow-up Love for Lunch, which brought the single “Dish of the Day” and a reading of “Summertime”.

The later years were more cinematic. Lilywhite Soul, presented in Amsterdam in 2011 on Blue Note, included a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”. In 2012 the pair submitted a remake of “Pablo's Blues” and a new piece, “Tarantino's Tango”, for Django Unchained, and both landed on the album Rendezvous 8:02. A live album, Lifesexy, came in October. Lancee and Fransen split in 2013, yet the band carried on with a new line-up, and songs like “Almost There” still hold the cool, late-evening mood the duo built from jazz and lounge.