Toots Thielemans
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Jean "Toots" Thielemans (born Brussels, April 29, 1922) is a Belgian jazz artist well known for his harmonica play.
He started his career as a guitar player. In 1949 he joined a jam session in Paris with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and others.
He moved to the US in 1952 where he was a member of Charlie Parker's All-Stars. He played and recorded with names like Ella Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, Bill Evans, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Astrud Gilberto, Elis Regina and others.
A jazz standard by Toots Thielemans is "Bluesette" where he used whistling and guitar in unison. His harmonica can also be heard in movie scores like Midnight Cowboy and in TV programs like Sesame Street, the Belgian TV series Witse and the Dutch TV series Baantjer.
External links
Partial discography
Major works include:
- Only Trust Your Heart (1988)
- Footprints (1991, Universal)
- The Brasil Project (1992, BMG)
- The Brasil Project vol 2. (1993, BMG)
- Compact Jazz (1993, Verve)
- East Coast, West Coast (1994, Private Music)
- Aquarelo do Brasil (1995, Universal)
- Chez Toots (1998, Windham Hill)
- The Live Takes, volume 1 (2000, Quetzal records)
- Hard to Say Goodbye, the very best of Toots Thielemans (2000, Universal)
- Toots Thielemans & Kenny Wener (2001, Universal)
