Background

While I was studying at The Royal Conservatory I started playing a Lot of gigs with alto saxophonist Benjamin Herman at Café Alto and Bourbon Street in Amsterdam. Later there were concerts at De Kring at the Leidsche Plein. I worked with my own sextet and we played at The Ivrea Jazz festival where trumpeter Freddy Hubbard danced to our music. (We played one of his tunes). I also visited New York City and played with a lot of great musicians there like John Swana, Essiet Essiet and Tim Armacost at places like Smalls and Augies. With Benjamin Herman and Jasper Blom we formed the band "Five up High". With this band we played at numerous festivals like the San Sebastian Festival in Spain.

In the mean time I also worked with “The Ben van den Dungen-Jarmo Hoogendijk quintett". We toured through The Netherlands, Germany and many other countries. We performed at festivals like The North Sea Festival in The Hague. We literally played hundreds of gigs. Drummer John Engels and later Owen Hart Jr played in this band. We also formed the band "Brand New Orleans" with "Afrikit" player Willem Jansen and we tried to integrate African rhyhmical elements in our music.
“Blojasta” was a band I initiated with Willem Jansen, percussionist, Jeroen Vierdag, bs, Anton Goudsmit, git, and Jasper Blom, sax. Again with Benjamin Herman and DJ Graham B we played at "The Soul Kitchen" in Amsterdam. (Beats with improvisation) I played the Rhodes piano.

Another experiment was "Eveline and the Groove Movement". We integrated jazz elements in Rap and Hip Hop music. An interesting project for Codarts In Rotterdam was a collective Improvisation with piano and dancers. With Bird Award winner Toon Roos I toured through Spain. I had the privilege to perform with players such as Elvin Queen, dr Bob Berg, sax Benny Bailey, trp, Chris Potter, sax Pat Metheny, gui, and Tom Harrell, trp.

One of the most important experiences for me was a performance with Benny Bailey.

Mr. Bailey played with literally all the major jazz musicians in the world.

Someone with such an experience is not concerned with ego issues, but plays music in its purest form.

Once I saw a girl that  cried her heart out after mister Bailey sang a tune. She told me she didn't understand where this sudden emotional outburst came from.