That's My Desire

11 Tracks 1 Disc

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1. That's my desire
2. On a green dolphin street
3. Stan's blues
4. Moonglow
5. Just in time
6. Soft lights and sweet music
7. It's you or no one
8. Sweet Lorraine
9. Stomping at the Savoy
10. Sabor a mi
11. Airmail Special

PAUL DUBOIS (double bass) (1924), a self-taught bassist, has become a central figure of Belgian jazz. He is one of the few bassists to use the bow, playing and singing his solos in a way that is reminiscent of American bassist Slam Stewart. He started his national radio contract with Toots Thielemans in the Henri Van Bemst Quintet in 1947 to 1948.
He played with countless American soloists, including jazz legends such as Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Lester Young, Don Byas, Earl Hines, Hank Jones, Buck Clayton…
Also a painter, Paul Dubois is considered a bass player of class and distinction who perfectly illustrates mainstream jazz in Belgium.

JOHNNY HOT (piano) (1932), born in a family of musicians, started his piano career at the age of 5, playing at Radio Berchem and Radio Schaarbeek. At the age of 13 he won the prize of best amateur pianist organised by the Hot Club de Belgique. He played with the Jump College, a Belgian dance orchestra which he later conducted, performing with Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Kenny Clarke, Slide Hampton , Nat King Cole...
Johnny Hot shares his life experience as a pianist regularly with the new jazz generation.

ALAIN COPPY (drs) (1949), a self-taught drummer, started playing drums at the age of 14 in various bands. After leaving the country for six years ,cruising around the world with the All Stars Orchestra. Upon returning to Belgium, he began playing with Johnny Dover, Freddy Sunder and the Jump College. He worked for many years with Alex Scorier. When the great drummer Rudy Frankel died in 2002 he took over in the Retro Jazz Orchestra.

WALTER DE WEERDT (gt) (1956), started playing guitar and banjo after graduating at the Brussels Art School in film. The founding member and bandleader of the Retro Jazz Orchestra for 25 years, he has led the band on several occasions to Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Monaco. Retro Jazz played at almost every jazz festival in Belgium and the Netherlands as well as often being seen on BRT television
Over the years, he has continued to select the greatest musicians for the orchestra.

CONSTANT LETELLIER (clar.) (1923), awarded highest distinction in clarinet at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, he learned to play jazz by listening to records of Ellington, Goodman, Artie Saw and Buddy de Franco. In 1948 he played for the American Army in Germany, then toured in Libya, Morocco and England with the Bob Shots. He began clubbing in 1953 in the Brussels Boeuf sur le Toit and the Moulin Rouge. He was member of the Henry Segers' television orchestra (which was also the band for the 1958 World Fair in Brussels), where he stayed for 13 years,. On the clarinet, alto and tenor sax , he participated in many studio recordings, as well as touring in Europe.

HERMAN SANDY( tp) (1921) bought his first vinyl record ,Georgia On My Mind by Nat Gonella, in 1935. He then began studying trumpet and classical music, but was more interested in listening to Buck Clayton, Louis Armstrong and all the great American jazz musicians on the radio. He toured in Germany after the liberation, then returned to perform in Brussels. While playing in Leo Souris', David Bee's and Fud Candrix's historical Belgian orchestras, he went to perform with Toots Thielemans, Sadi and Jacques Pelzer at the Nice Jazz Festival in 1948. He spent six years in the Henry Segers' TV orchestra, and 17 years with the great Flemish Francis Bay's TV orchestra (later Freddy Sunder's orchestra). In 1957 at a Miles Davis concert held at the Brussels Théâtre Patria, Miles stopped Herman after finishing his set (his band opened for Miles Davis) and asked "Was that you playing 'You and the Night and the Music'? It was damned good!"

JOOP AYAL (ten sax) (1925), left his birthplace-the Indonesian island Kisar for the Netherlands in 1948 where he worked with the singer Rita Reys. In 1951, he moved to Brussels where he started playing the baritone sax with Francis Bay in the famous club Au Gaity. Until 1965 he stayed clubbing in the city, than started a long collaboration with Flemish television. He played with his quintet at Jazz Middelheim in 1976. Joop Ayal has a master's degree in Contre Point from the Académie Royale de Bruxelles and in Arranging and Orchestration from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. )

lieu d'enregistrement : Music Village, Brussels