Eric van der Westen

Biography

Eric van der Westen was born on August 29, 1963, in Zierikzee, in the Dutch province of Zeeland. He picked up the guitar at the age of ten, soon switched to bass, and as a teenager formed his own bands, playing hard rock and new wave in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

At nineteen, he left his psychology studies at university to become a professional musician. It was then that he took up the double bass and began his first formal music training. Just half a year later he was accepted at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, where he graduated in 1990.

While still a student, Eric began working with Dutch jazz greats such as Willem van Manen and Paul van Kemenade, followed by collaborations with many other Dutch and international jazz masters.

He went on to build a career as a composer of modern, improvised crossover music, in which his band Quadrant (Extended) played a pivotal role. He has recorded many albums under his own name and numerous more as a sideman.

In the 1990s, Eric developed a serious interest in African music. It took him across the continent and led to concerts with a wide range of leading musicians.

In recent decades, Eric has immersed himself in Turkish music and culture, playing every style with artists such as Derya Türkan, Erkan Oğur, Fahir Atakoğlu, Uğur Işık and The Yarkin Brothers. He became a member of the Sezen Aksu Acoustic Band, performing around the world in famous venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Royal Albert Hall in London and Cirkus in Stockholm, at times for audiences of more than 50,000 people.

At the end of that era, Eric turned his focus back to his roots and founded the acoustic duo A Traveller’s Tale with guitarist Aron Raams, a lasting musical vehicle built on their shared admiration for blues, folk, country, jazz and Americana. Next came Eric van der Westen’s New Quadrant, featuring violin, trombone, trumpet/flugelhorn, guitar and double bass. Their first album, released in October 2021, is part of a trilogy: The Crown & Lobster Trilogy Part III: New Quadrant.

The first part of the trilogy followed on November 27, 2021: The Crown & Lobster Trilogy Part I: PTM (xs) Modus Operandi. It presents a compact version of Eric’s big band Private Time Machine, which draws on his earliest influences: heavy blues rock, soul, funk and, of course, jazz. In this powerhouse line-up Eric plays only bass guitar and electric upright bass, and he sings as well.

The Crown & Lobster Trilogy Part II: Blue Is All That’s Left, released in January 2023, gathers a selection of ballads from Eric’s songbook along with a few new tunes. It has proven a hit on Spotify, with more than 5 million streams.

Later in 2023, the PTM Project released Us-Min(G)-Us, a contemporary look at the music of Eric’s guru Charles Mingus, with poet Jimmy Rage playing a prominent role in the line-up. The album came out on September 9, 2023.

Eric also performs as a duo with his brother Dieter van der Westen, and plays in Dieter’s band, which has an eclectic Americana profile. Visit Dieter’s website for more information.

Alongside his musical work, Eric has always pursued a business career. He has run the record label EWM Music since 1998 and has taken part in several startups, including Greenbag. From 2019 to 2024 he headed the festival Better Get Hit (In Your Soul) in Tilburg, the Netherlands, a music festival fully dedicated to all forms of African-American music.

In 2025 came Songs From The Vault, with new and reworked compositions for quintet, featuring Guido Nijs on saxophone, Koen Smits on trumpet, Sjoerd van Eijk on piano and Pascal Vermeer on drums.