Born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1963.
I started working as a professional musician in 1985. My first gig was with the Belgian Radio and Television Jazz Orchestra in Brussels. Over the years, I've performed in clubs and at festivals in Europe and many other places in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. I was fortunate to share the stage and recording studio with amazing artists such as Toots Thielemans, Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Norma Winstone, Kenny Wheeler, Billy Hart, Paolo Fresu, Marc Ducret, Michel Herr, Félix Simtaine, Bruno Castellucci, Michel Benita, Rita Marcotulli, Paul Van Kemenade, Nguyên Lê, Peter Hertmans, Pete McCann, Lindsey Horner, and many many others, every one of significant importance in my evolution as a musician… I want to thank all of them.
I especially need to mention drummer Dré Pallemaerts (we were in high school together), bass player Michel Hatzigeorgiou, and keyboard wizard Jozef Dumoulin, who have been members of my quartet “Let’s Call Ed.” We started as a trio in the late eighties, before Jozef joined the band about 15 years later. Tons of gratitude towards those three.
As a composer and arranger, I wrote music for big band (The Brussels Jazz Orchestra), hip-hop (Krewcial, DJ Grazzhoppa’s DJ Big Band), soul (Moiano), pop (Lalalover), and for chamber orchestra in a project with the Belgian rock band Venus. From 2002 to 2005, I collaborated with the Canadian choreographer David Pressault on several of his projects, creating electronic music and music for solo saxophone and live electronics. Furthermore, I’ve composed music for film and TV. The documentaries “Traces/Empreintes de femmes” and “En attendant les hommes,” both by Katy Lena Ndiaye (Neon Rouge), received several international awards.
Over the years (1988 - 2012), I’ve been a member of the faculty at the Royal Conservatories of Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp, and the Conservatory of Luxemburg. Furthermore, I have taught many workshops in Belgium and abroad.
In 2009, I decided to turn down the volume and slow down the pace of my high-paced life as a performer, composer, and arranger. I started teaching yoga, a discipline I had been practicing since the mid-eighties. Since then, I only perform a handful of concerts per year. Since 2018, I have started spending more time in the recording studio again. I love playing, improvising, composing on the spot.
