Turning Into Jazz- As Serious As Your Life
I never had had any serious music lessons after my initiation in playing guitar at the age of 10. Many times I’d try to start reading notes in some bass book or whatever. I knew that there was a whole world of music that I had no clue of. But when my psychology study at the University came to a halt before it really took off, my dad told me to take up music seriously if that’s what I wanted to do.
So I went down to the official local Music School. 
I had a meeting with the bass teacher Rinus Raaijmakers, who had just taken over from Double Bass master Hein van de Gein. Rinus was a fabulous guy. He had humour and was the first one to give me a little bit of confidence. Throughout my career I’ve had many doubts whether I was good enough to do what I wanted, like most professional musicians.
My first lesson was a disaster though. I came in and told Rinus I wanted to go to the conservatory where you could study jazz & improvised music since one or two years. His reply was: “ok, let’s play the blues”. He counted off and I started to play a groovy shuffled Delta -Eric Clapton kind of Blues which I’d played many times. By the way; I still love to play that nowadays! But back then after 2 bars Rinus stopped me….he said this is not the blues for the conservatory….you have to learn the jazz blues with several different chords. I had no clue what he was talking about. He gave me “Au Privave”, which is a Charlie Parker blues, and told me to learn the head by heart and the walking bassline which he wrote down for the next lesson. I jumped to it and of course I could play both tasks flawless the next lesson. That’s when he gave me my 1st real compliment: well…..this might be possible….
I practised my bass guitar and learned songs from Jeff Beck and Charlie Parker and another jazz standard “Blue Bossa”. I went to the Conservatory in Rotterdam to do the entry exam and got kicked out head first with the comments from both bass teacher Koos Serierse and the classical teacher saying “what the hell are you doing here? You can’t play shit”. Down again with the little self esteem I’d grown. They were right of course but it still hurt bad….and since I’m a lot of things but not a quitter I decided to go for it even far more dedicated than ever before. And it would pay off.
I started to get lessons from a true music guru. Steve Clover is without a doubt the most important teacher I’ve ever had. His background as a drummer that worked with Paul Bley, Fred Raulston and Gary Peacock when he used to live in Seattle made him like the true messiah of Jazz. Born in Elmhurst, Indiana but since the late 70’s an American Music Apostle in Europe.
His knowledge, being a ethno-musicologist, and dedication to his pupils was such an inspiring aspect of my musical upbringing that I owe him more than I can imagine. He was the one to give me a little bit of confidence by giving me time to really learn to play the Double Bass to which I had recently switched to. And it was damn tough: blisters on all fingertips, day after day after day.
He made me read books and the back of jazzalbum covers where they used to write whole stories on the recorded music and artists, to digest the history of the only music which contains really everything: jazz. Through Steve I experienced what an enormous joy and how fullfilling it is to completely submerge in music. If it’s theory or ensemble playing, Steve was on it. I learned so much from him. I owe him a lot. His motto was: “You did it, so you can do it; so you will do it!” I use it still.
He told me to go out and buy one LP and listen to it so often that I could dream every note of it. So I went out to our local record store “Tommy” which was a legendary good record store by the way, and bought 2 albums: Thelonious Monk “Sphere” 
and Charles Mingus “Live”. And I stated to listen to the music. At first I couldn’t tell head from tail, but after several times I started to like the relaxedness of Thelonious
but also the raw energy of Mingus. With him I had the feeling that all what I liked in music was played at the same time, as if all boundaries were gone. It was as if someone had given me an insight in how the music had become a tool of all comprehensive expression. 
I was drawn to this monstrous Double Bass player that steered his band in any direction he wished, right here and now. The Mingus seed was thoroughly planted. His band was the ultimate vehicle to express any musical emotion at the speed of light. And it still is…..
I dug deep into jazz and had a few fellow students around me that had the same mission. We started to study solfege & music theory. I have, to this day a somewhat reluctant relationship with music theory. I sincerely believe in a naïve approach to music. Theory can help but it can never overtake your heart. If it feels right; it’s right but if it’s theoretically right it can feel seriously wrong and forced.
But at that time I was engulfed in all the things I needed to learn to get admitted to the conservatory. I started to play workshops with a local tenor madman Henk Koekoek, who was and is one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever come across. He enjoyed working with young new musicians and quite soon I started to play around Tilburg learning jazz with him and my fellow students. Most of them were much further in their devellopment than I was but since there weren’t too many double bassplayers I started to play a lot.
It’s also around that time that I saw my 1st jazz concert in the local jazzclub Paradox, which would have an important place in my musical carreer.
Jasper van ’t Hof & Pierre Courbois played a whirlwind freaky duo concert that was just amazing. It was a burning energetic concert with nothing I’d heard ever before. It was free, loud-being electric-, but most of all it was as if I witnessed Deep Purple’s Ian Paice & Jon Lord in full flight but then way more delicate and virtuoso at the same time.
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I worked my way through Ilja Croon’s Guitar method book 1 and 2 and when I had learned the barre chords I was ready to try everything on my own. I must have been about 13 years old when I played with my friends Ad Ghering -a hockey-playing-drummer whose father was an (upright) jazz bass player where I first saw a real huge impressive double bass- and Rene Samuels the guitarist that I met when I had my first guitar lessons with Peter van de Par who’d become a successful antique trader later. My first electric guitar was an Eco semi acoustic that I bought from Peter. It had a huge feedback and was a nice, easy to play guitar. But It was my Rokkoman Les Paul copy that I would play on for some time. It didn’t take long before I’d switch to bass guitar and bought myself a Hondo Precision Bass 
and an Ibanez Cube Amp. In our local music shop “Bill Coolen” I’d spend hours and hours just looking at the most fabulous basses and guitars that were way out of my league. Especially real Fender Precisions or Rickenbackers
like the one my hero Roger Glover in Deep Purple used to play like a wet dream. In fact they still are: an old ’62 Precision or a good old Rickenbacker are still worth a fortune.
and “All Right Now from Free”…that stuff beside some originals. One of the first songs I wrote was “Never Coming Home”, on which I played harmonica as well, slightly based on “Heroin” by Lou Reed from “Rock ‘N Roll Animal”. “Babi Yar”was another original song inspired by “Hard Lovin’ Man” from Deep Purple about a massacre of the Jews in WW2;I was way too serious those days….
Rene Wouters played the guitar and we were a real band for about 5 years. We started of rehearsing on Friday afternoon at our former primary school. Later on we rehearsed in the attic of a barn of Ronald’s farm. We build a room of blocks of hay to isolate both for sound but also for temperature. Of course all in vain…. In summer it would be extremely hot and in winter there was no way to heat anything up but coffee and booze, but at least we wouldn’t have to carry our gear in and out the room every time. I remember we’d go to some ponds at night after rehearsal and have a great time. I taught a good friend Ben Doomen how to play functional organ in an old chapel- de Hasseltse Kapel- in Tilburg, opposite his home. We had a vocalist Robert Sauvé, who had a lot of nerve, not such a great voice though, and had an excellent sense of humor. They came and went. 
We eventually added a guitarist Ashna Vishnudat who was a real virtuoso to our standards. He loved Al DiMeola and that jazz rock stuff that was extremely popular with musicians in the late 70’s, and could play like that too. My eclectic spirit didn’t help to find a musical course though…. We tried several musical styles; Deep Purple and Rainbow like hard rock (Axe) , U2 and Joy Division type new wave (Transmitted Tears) etc. to get even a bit of success but it wasn’t really happening in the end. We played some loud and nice gigs but never enough to get a working band ethic that I longed for so much. To this day I regret that we didn’t play more gigs back then to really get the hang of touring in a Rock And Roll Band. I’m always looking for a working band atmosphere; I still do. My efforts to enroll Conservatory put an abrupt end to my band efforts in contemporary pop music. I had the idea that I couldn’t continue in the same way and had to start to go my own way though I had no clue in what I was doing. Instead of focusing on a band effort I took a shot at diving in a new music genre that soon would completely change my musical environment.
It was a real treat: I’ve always carried around my own flight case with the huge 7/8 scale Père Pillement Bass from the early 1800’s -Père died in 1830- build to last centuries. And believe me a bass weighing over 30 kgs and a flight case of the same weight is not something to travel light. Many times my bass wouldn’t fit the airplane and would be send later. Often taxis wouldn’t take me because it simply didn’t fit and they wouldn’t bother to call for a van or anything. But now we had a crew that took care of everything…….my bass stood, in its case, ready behind my place on stage. All I had to do was to take him out of the case and play. Very luxurious for a jazzman used to make ends meet and twist every penny.
When I was in New York with Sezen, I knew we were going to play the famous Carnegie Hall. For the rest of the band it was like the regular gig because they’d been there before but for me it was a temple of music. The place where all the illustrious jazz stars and singers had performed when they were at their top. The place where Glenn Gould worked his way through the Goldberg Variations on Bach. A magical monumental place. And me, the guy from outskirts of the small industrial town in the south of The Netherlands that nobody heard of, was going to play for a sold out house. In itself a lifetime achievement.
And as always after the show there was Turkish food for everyone. That would become the staple diet of the years to come. The delicious and rich flavors of the Turkish cuisine, always, always, always; no matter where we were. If we’d toured India, Mexico Japan or China only Turkish food would be served.
Being such a star takes a huge toll. It takes away your identity and changes your environment fundamentally. Since I wasn’t a Sezen disciple – I didn’t really know anything of her before I joined the band- I could joke and talk with her on an equal basis. I still take her serious as a person, not as a star and I love her for that. Sezen is a special person with a special place in my heart. Over the years I’ve come to understand that being a superstar is both a bless and a burden. Drugs and alcohol are available anywhere, anytime and as Sinatra didn’t want to sing Randy Newman’s song….it’s lonely at the top.
