Boy Edgar

Boy Edgar (1964)

Boy Edgar , actually George Willem Fred Edgar (born March 31, 1915 in Amsterdam , † April 8, 1980 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch jazz trumpeter, jazz pianist, band leader and doctor.

life and work

Edgar grew up as the son of George Edgar, a grocer for Indonesian products, who was of Armenian origin, and Georgine Reisner in Amsterdam. He visited Indonesia several times in his youth. During his school days he had first contact with jazz music (he was particularly impressed by " Mood Indigo " by Duke Ellington ) and taught himself the trumpet and piano. In 1932 he began to study medicine at the University of Amsterdam , which he financed through appearances as a jazz musician (his family's wealth - his father died in 1935 - fell sharply during the Great Depression). In 1936 he won a prize for amateur musicians in Brussels and in 1937 he joined the band “The Moochers” in The Hague , which he led from 1939 until the German occupiers banned Holland's jazz music. Edgar graduated as a doctor during the Second World War and composed for orchestra on the side, but then had to go into hiding. After the war he was briefly imprisoned as he refused to be stationed in Indonesia during his military service, where attempts were being made at the time to put down an anti-colonial uprising against the Dutch occupiers. He began performing as a pianist in Switzerland, Austria and Italy in the 1940s.

His main occupation was since 1950 as a research assistant at the University of Amsterdam, where he received his doctorate in 1955 on multiple sclerosis (cum laude), from which his wife Mimosa Frenk, whom he married in 1942, suffered. In order to take care of his wife and because he concentrated on his scientific career, he stopped his musical career. After the death of his wife in 1958, he first appeared again in 1960. In the same year he married Ida Lengtat, with whom he had two children. The success of his big band was so great that they were regularly broadcast on the radio (VARA). It is to Boy Edgar's merit that he brought together musicians of different styles and interests in his band. Theo Loevendie played in the Boy Edgar Big Band, and Willem van Manen began his musical career there. Edgar was also the first jazz musician to receive official financial support for some concerts at the Holland Festival , which was the first time that jazz music was recognized as an art form in the Netherlands.

Edgar was also head of the neuropathological institute “Meer en Bosch” in Heemstede . Edgar brought out several records, won an "Edison Prijs" and in 1964 the "Wessel Ilcken Prijs" for jazz musicians, which had only been established the previous year. From 1966 to 1969 he was a visiting professor in the USA. The big band was led by Theo Loevendie from 1966 , but broke up in 1968. Then he was a general practitioner in Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam. After the end of his big band, he led the group “Boy Edgars Sound” from 1968, mainly with saxophonists from the former big band. In 1971 he finally gave up his big band plans. On the record "Music Was His Mistress" he remembered Duke Ellington in 1977. In 1979 he gave up his medical practice and died a short time later. The “Wessel Ilcken Prize” was renamed the “ Boy Edgar Prize ” in his honor after his death .

Web links

• Biography, Dutch

Remarks

1. ↑ In addition, in 1968 the Boy Edgar Bigband became the progressive Theo Loevendie Consort and the more conventional Hobby Orkest with Cees Smal and Herman Schoonderwalt and pianist Frans Elsen