Harmonica Legend Toots Thielemans on Piano Jazz
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Jos Knaepen Toots Thielemans' trademark style makes him the unrivalled master of the jazz harmonmica.
Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, March 28, 2008 - Jean "Toots" Thielemans was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1922. He began playing the accordion at age three and, as a child, he often performed for the patrons at his parent's cafe. As a teenager Thielemans took up the harmonica, and later the guitar.
The Thielemans family fled to France following the German occupation of Belgium in WWII, and it was there that Thielemans first heard big band jazz. After the war, Thielemans returned to Brussels and began playing Django Reinhardt-inspired guitar in local bars with the likes of Edith Piaf and Stephane Grappelli. With the growing popularity of bebop, Toots returned to the harmonica and began working out the complex patterns he heard in the playing of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Thielemans got his big break in 1950 when he joined Benny Goodman's band on their European tour. Two years later, he immigrated to the U.S. and quickly found work along side such groups as Charlie Parker's All Stars and the George Shearing Quintet. Thielemans worked with Shearing's group for much of the 1950s, while also releasing albums under his own name.
Thielemans' biggest hit, "Bluesette," was recorded in 1961. A year later, Thielemans recorded "Moon River" for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, which kicked off a string of successful appearances on film soundtracks including The Wiz, Funny About Love and Midnight Cowboy. Thielemans' harmonica was also heard on the opening theme song to Sesame Street and his whistling appeared on a widely recognized "Old Spice" commercial.
A perennial winner of Downbeat's readers polls and other critics polls for best performer on "Miscellaneous Instruments," Thielemans' musicianship is well established and recognized by the numerous and diverse musicians with whom he's performed and recorded. He has backed vocalists from Ella Fitzgerald, to Natalie Cole, to Billy Joel, and has performed with instrumentalists as diverse as Bill Evans, Jaco Pastorius and Brazilian guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves.
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