Guy Cabay

Guy Cabay (born October 2, 1950 in Polleur ) is a Belgian jazz musician ( vibraphone , piano , vocals , arrangement ).

Live and act

Cabay initially dealt autodidactically with drums and piano playing; through meeting Raoul Faisant and Maurice Simon , he found jazz. After seeing Gary Burton at the Comblain Jazz Festival , he soon switched to the vibraphone and initially played with Dixieland and mainstream jazz formations. After studying musicology at the University of Liège , he co-founded the fusion band Open Sky Unit around Jacques Pelzer and Steve Houben , which he soon released to move to Italy and do his doctorate there on music of the Middle Ages . In 1975 he founded the formation Merry-Go-Round with Houben , whose repertoire consisted of jazz standards and with which he performed in the Netherlands. With Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and Félix Simtaine he accompanied the singer Jean Vallée on a tour of the Soviet Union .

In the following years Cabay worked for a dialect program for RTB, sang Walloon chansons to bossa nova rhythms. In 1978 he made his debut album Tot-a-fêt red cou-d'zeur cou-d'zos (with Milou Struvay , Steve Houben, Greg Badolato , Gérard Malherbe , Jean-Luc Couturier and Eddy Davidson), followed by several albums guest musicians such as Bill Frisell , Kermit Driscoll , Toots Thielemans , Steve Houben and Larry Schneider were involved. He was also a member of the Act Big Band of Féxilx Simtaine and formed a quartet with Kevin Mulligan (guitar), Evert Verhees (bass) and Bruno Castellucci (drums). In 1981 he founded the Latin jazz formation Lemon Air (with Michel Herr , Houben, Mulligan and Rouselet) . In the following years he worked a. a. with Diederik Wissels , Hein van de Geyn , Bert Joris and Philip Catherine ; He also wrote music for film and television, most recently for the film Problemski Hotel by Manu Riche . In the field of jazz he was involved in 31 recording sessions between 1978 and 2004.

Émile Henceval: Dictionnaire du jazz à Bruxelles et en Wallonie . Liège: Pierre Mardaga, 1991.