TOON VAN VLIET

Toon van Vliet

The career of Toon van Vliet (Rotterdam, 20 June 1922 – Zandvoort, 5 November 1975) takes on a slow start, and dwindles towards the end. His best years are in the fifties, in drummer Wessel Ilcken's group, and in the small combo within the Ramblers. He stems from a ...
Full biography

Instruments

klarinet, tenorsaxofoon

Mentioned in the biography of

1945   Lex van Spall
1946   Rita Reys

Biography Toon van Vliet

The career of Toon van Vliet (Rotterdam, 20 June 1922 – Zandvoort, 5 November 1975) takes on a slow start, and dwindles towards the end. His best years are in the fifties, in drummer Wessel Ilcken's group, and in the small combo within the Ramblers. He stems from a large Rotterdam family, where it goes without saying that he joins the local brass band. At the age of ten he is the orchestra's youngest member on clarinet. He meets Kees Noordijk (saxophonist Piet Noordijk's older brother), who introduces him to jazz. Until 1950 Toon van Vliet cannot decide whether he should play clarinet or tenor saxophone, and whether he should choose for the Rotterdam Philharmonic or jazz. Eventually it turns out to be the latter, and in that world he is a highly valued tenorist. 'My career as a clarinetist, for which I sacrificed my entire childhood after all, has failed… Financially jazz is not a worthwhile activity. But that doesn't keep me from playing jazz. I simply have to, it's my life, as it is for all of us jazz cats.' (interview in Rhythme, 1960). Toon van Vliet never made an album as a leader. The only LP bearing his name wasn't compiled until ten years after his death. In the Netherlands the album receives favorable reviews, but the criticism of the American jazz magazine Cadence is pretty harsh: 'I'll regretfully say that this is about the deadest, flattest, most boring jazz I've ever heard in my life.'

Played in

Holland Kwartet   saxofoon

1945 - 1950

After the war Van Vliet takes on various engagements, with Joe Andy, Lex van Spall and Ernst van 't Hoff.

1951

A tour with Jochem de Molenaar takes him to England, where young Vic Feldman's playing once and for all converts him to jazz.

1952 - 1956

In Wessel Ilcken and Rita Reys's combo the public gets to know him through sessions at the Sheherazade jazzclub in Amsterdam, various concerts and his contributions to recordings.

Rita Reys Wessel Ilcken

1956 - 1960

Van Vliet joins the Ramblers, and stays until the group disbands in 1964. During radio broadcasts the band's leader Theo Uden Masman often features him as a soloist. His radio work also includes ensembles like those led by Willy Langestraat, Theo Loevendie, Jurriaan Andriessen (a.k.a. Leslie Cool) and Klaas van Beeck. He occasionally performs in Dutch jazzclubs with a quartet with changing personnel. Two quartet sessions he made for the Wereldomroep (the Dutch radio world service) are released on LP in 1985.

Klaas van Beeck Theo Loevendie The Ramblers

1960 - 1975

Boy Edgar includes Toon van Vliet in the extensive sax section of Boy's Big Band, and features him as a soloist during concerts and recordings. He also plays in the VARA Dansorkest (dance orchestra), which has more or less taken over from the Ramblers. In the long run he manages to find his way around the routine playing these bands require. At one of Toon van Vliet's last performances, in May 1975 critic Rudy Koopmans concludes: 'The swift and relaxed musician has made way for an old and wise, and sometimes tired man, who takes his time with every single note.'

Boy's Big Band

Audio/Video Toon van Vliet