BIOGRAPHY

I was born on the 18th of June 2004 and since then I have been surrounded by art and music in all their

shapes and forms.
I grew up with in a musical family and with an endless music collection.

That way I became familiar with classical, gypsy music, all styles of jazz, Western, African, Eastern folklore,

film music and everything in between and outside that.

While listening musical loves arose that still exist such as my deep respect and appreciation for the classical

greats such as Bach, Beethoven and Moussorsky and the Argentinian grandmasters Eduardo Falú, 
Jorge Cafrune and Atahualpa Yupanqui as well as the fabulous Louis Armstrong and the

wonderful Belgian composer and singer Wannes Van de Velde

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As a child I often found myself drawing to realize my fantasies, later followed by writing various stories about unknown faraway lands and magical characters but I didn't have a deep interest in the playing and creating of music.
I did however follow solfeggio (with very little enthusiasm) and tried to play some notes on piano.
One day my grandfather Koen gave me a present; an old trumpet by Olds Ambassador which I took with me to music school for a classical education from Joeri Vanhove.
I didn't have the idea of becoming a musician but the impact of those lessons and that gift changed my life completely.

 

My first big hero who's musical path I wanted to follow was surpisingly enough the Bavarian Franzl Lang who's yodelling I discovered on YouTube.
My fascination and respect for this German folklore singer was enormous and I tried to sing the Alpine melodies until my voice lowered and it became too hard ending my nonexistent yodeling career. 

Desperate I found myself listening to an old New Orleans record by Kid Ory which opened the gates to a completely new world; jazz

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My trumpet which I had only used for classical music an attempts to Bavarian folklore and sometimes seemed so insignificant suddenly became a melodious guideline through the fresh given of jazz.
By ear I learned a couple of simple melodies, the first one Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho and eventually I knew about four songs from that record.
Later I discovered a couple of other records by Bunk Johnson, George Lewis and Kid Howard and very slowly my repertoire started to grow.

 

A little while later I was on holidays in the mountains and forests of Southern France.
I was there with a friend, my grandmother and my aunt who decided to take a hike but since I didn't feel like hiking I stayed in our little cottage.
It didn't take long for boredom to find me after playing trumpet for a long time.
Suddenly I found myself looking at a cheap classical guitar my uncle Myrddin had found on a market.
I tuned it completely wrong with an antique, worn-out piano in the cottage and eventually played some notes that resembled a melody and by doing so I placed my first wobbly steps on my path as guitarist.

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15th of June 2018; the opening of Bar Lume; the new bar owned by my dad.
He told me the day before that my grandfather was playing with a New Orleans band and he convinced me to ask if I could join for a couple of numbers during the concert.
With a lot of courage I asked if I could play and my grandfather answered something in the lines of:
"All right, a couple of tunes" . My dream became a reality.
With my trumpet in my hand I was waiting nervously until my grandfather put a chair next to his and called me over to sit by him.
We played a couple of numbers I knew and suddenly he announced a song I didn't know the melody of.
"It's in G for us" and with those words in mind I played along softly on feeling and by ear.
I played the whole concert with them, we ended with 'When the Saints go marching in' and paraded through the new bar in between the crowd, I couldn't comprehend how happy I was and how right it all felt.

 

After that concert I visited my grandfather a couple of times and he slowly taught me the theoretical and an emotional aspect to music.

Some guitar and piano lessons followed.

Eventually those visits became rehearsals combined with diners at my home in Ghent and they turned into a weekly routine and we performed monthly in the Lume with a New Orleans line-up.
Around that period my grandfather wrote his book 'Flarden' and asked me to accompany his bookpresentations on trumpet and guitar together with him, Myrddin and his daughter Imre.
A couple of concerts followed in Flanders and my musical taste started broadening from New Orleans jazz to gypsy music and chanson.
In this way I grew as a musician and slowly but surely more concerts followed but there was still one dream I had: having a band of my own with young musicians (the average age of my fellow musicians was way higher than mine in those days)

After a long search I found a couple of young fellows to play with, one of them being the fantastical accordion player Leander Vertriest who is now one of my best friends.
Together we went on a journey through gypsy music, jazz, folklore and for some reason Bluegrass as well.
We played a couple of times in a variety of line-ups with our Millennial All-Style Collective and everything seemed to go well until suddenly...

Corona

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In a very short time the musical circuit and the bars, restaurants and playing opportunities were shut down and we lived in a negative, worldwide fear.

But negative is relative because during the period of the lockdowns I played more than ever before en I kept evolving further as a musician.

The switchover from trumpet to guitar started forming during this period.
After months of playing for hours every day, the opportunities to perform started returning slowly in waves.
I kept on playing with my family as well as with Leander and the other young musicians until a certain moment when I was asked to lead an international project revolving around young musicians.
I immediately asked Leander and together with my dad we put together a group of eight Belgian musicians to go to Serbia during the summer.

We stayed there for ten days and that was a very enriching and wonderful experience for me.
The project created a couple of very strong friendships and musical connections.
Thereafter I kept on performing more and started jamming and busking as much as possible in Ghent.

Eventually I began programming weekly jams in Hot Club Ghent for and by young musicians and in this way I came into contact with more contemporary visions on jazz as well as a bunch of young and promising musicians.

Now, nineteen years old - four years after my first performance and with more hunger, passion and love for the creating of music than ever before....
Who knows what musical projects and adventures will follow?