Jean Robert (musician)
Jean Robert (born June 25, 1908 in Brussels , † February 28, 1981 in Hilversum ) was a Belgian tenor saxophonist and arranger . He also played bass saxophone and trumpet.
Live and act
Robert first learned the piano and then played the saxophone in small groups in the Brussels area. In 1928 he was with Peter Packay in London (who recorded as Red Robins in London). In 1929 he played in the band of trumpeter Gus Deloof and in the big band of Chas Remue , with which he also recorded. In 1930/31 he played with Deloof (with whom he also recorded at Pathé in 1931) and Albert Sykes in Egypt and Ostend and other seaside resorts. He then led his own band at the Atlanta Hotel in Brussels (in which Jean Omer also played). He played in the Netherlands with the drummer Freddie Beerman and in Belgium in 1935 with Robert de Kers and led his own quartet at the Cotton Club in Brussels and in Switzerland. In 1937 he met Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter and in 1938 he played in the trio of Freddy Johnson at the Cotton Club. He also stood in for Coleman Hawkins at the Negro Palace in Amsterdam and played with Jascha Trabsky .
After returning to Brussels he played in the band of Jean Omer , who founded a cabaret / dance hall Bœuf sur le Toit in Brussels in 1938 and in which the orchestra was the house band. He also performed with the orchestra in the Salle Pleyel in Paris. He also played with Omer in Berlin in the Delphi Palace ; He also worked in German dance bands in Berlin (such as those of Albert Vossen and Willi Stech ). In 1943 he played with Lutz Templin in Germany; Omer may have worked with some of his musicians on recordings for the propaganda band Charlie and His Orchestra . After the war in the 1940s and 1950s he played again with Omer in Bœuf sur le Toit . However, there was no longer a dance big band, but instead they played for cabaret and vaudeville, accompanied vocal groups and singers and played for revues. In 1962 Robert moved to Hilversum, where he was primarily a composer and arranger for radio and television (for example the Vara dance orchestra).
He made his first recordings under his own name in 1940 for Decca Records , playing the saxophone as well as the trumpet and was accompanied by Rudy Bruder on the piano and Buddy Heyninck on the drums. He also recorded with Gus Deloof for Jazz Club.
After the war he also worked for Maurice Chevalier in Paris .
In obituaries he was referred to as the Belgian Coleman Hawkins in 1981 and Coleman Hawkins was also his great role model.
Lexical entry
- Barry Kernfeld (Editor) New Grove Dictionary of Jazz , Macmillan 1996 (by Robert Pernet ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Named after the Parisian cabaret of the same name
- ↑ In Tom Lord's discography in 1942/43 he is listed among the possible band members of Charlie and his Orchestra (tensor and baritone saxophone, clarinet). There are also recordings from Berlin with the dance orchestra of Adolf Steimel , the Meg Tevelian dance orchestra, the orchestra of Kurt Widmann , Willi Stanke , Willi Stech , Albert Vossen , Freddie Brocksieper (1943/44), and recordings from Brussels under Jean Omer from the second World war.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Robert, Jean |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian saxophonist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 25, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brussels |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 28, 1981 |
| Place of death | Hilversum |