WILD HAVANA

Eclectic Prog • Netherlands

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Biography
Buy music
Forum discussions
Videos (Youtube)
Discography
Reviews
Official website

Wild Havana biography
In existence from 1977 to 1980, Wild Havana were an obscure Dutch progressive rock project from Schagerbrug and the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Johan Smit (b. 1952). Inspired to pick up a guitar in childhood by the music of Django Reinhardt, Smit later took up classical guitar after hearing Jan Akkerman, and eventually became a fan of jazz-fusion/prog acts like Frank Zappa and Herbie Hancock. Seeking to produce music in a similar vein, Smit recorded, mixed and mastered the Wild Havana project on 4- and 2-track machines in a makeshift bedroom studio in his home.

Not entirely jazz-fusion nor krautrock nor psychedelic folk, Wild Havana straddled all these, undergirded with funky Latin flavours to which the band name alluded, inviting critical comparisons to Richard Pinhas, Cluster, Embryo, Ose and Christian Boul�. Smit handled guitar, bass, mandolin and a modified drum machine (by way of a Hammond organ), with his brother Cor providing flutes, harmonica and percussion, and the two were joined by their friends and additional percussionists Els Bethlehem and Kees Engelhart (who also contributed electric piano). Wild Havana's sole self-titled LP was independently released in 1977, with a limited run pressed by EMI-Bovema Holland and sold by Amsterdam record store Boudisk (with the track "Torture" featured in a Dutch TV documentary on aurora borealis a year later). The album received renewed interest upon reissue in 2018, first on vinyl through Mental Experience and later on limited edition CD via P-Vine Records.

It is unknown what became of the other musicians, but the Smit brothers continued to perform, forming the reggae-inspired new wave group The Clear with percussionist Ifor Baynes (formerly of Dutch Frank Zappa tribute band White Beans), again self-releasing just one album, Fill It in Your Self, in 1981. Johan produced work for movie promos and commercials and played in the Celtic music ensemble AIM in the intervening decades, settling down as a jazz guitarist as of 2018.

- Gordy, April 2025