Jerry van Rooyen

Jerry van Rooyen (actually Gerard van Rooijen, born December 31, 1928 in The Hague, † 14 September 2009 in Goor ) was a Dutch jazz big band leader and trumpeter, composer and arranger.

Life and work

Van Rooyen played with eight years in a marching band trumpet and later studied to become a music teacher with the aim at the Conservatory of The Hague. In 1944, he played the trumpet in a variety show, in 1946 in a band with his brother Ack in the troop entertainment in Indonesia, where they met and later arranger Rob Pronk. In 1949, he visited with his brother as an exchange student New York City, where he came into contact with Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. From 1955 he played on the radio orchestra " The Ramblers ' first trumpet and arranged for this. By the way he played with his own band. In the 1960s, he worked among others in Paris, where he led an orchestra for Fontana Records and arranged. He collaborated among others with Michel Legrand, Claude Bolling, Quincy Jones, Gilbert Becaud and Marlene Dietrich. In the second half of the 1960s, he headed the SFB Big Band in Berlin, at the same time his brother Ack played in the trumpet. In 1972 he was involved in the arrangements of the music for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Munich. Jerry van Rooyen was the artistic director at the Hilversum Conservatory, where he also taught since the early 1980s. From 1985 to 1995 he was director of the WDR Big Band, which he reshaped by a dance orchestra in a jazz big band. Since 1983, he led the Dutch Jazz Orchestra continues.

Others

From the mid- 1960s he also wrote film scores for some of Adrian Hoven produced German horror and spy films (including Jess Franco's Necronomicon ). In the 90s, excerpts of this film music on the CD " At 250 miles per hour " were published.

According to him, " Jerry van Rooyen Award" is named, which is awarded annually to the "Jazz Festival Maastricht ".