Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Robert De Kers was born Robert De Keersmaeker on August 10, 1906 in Antwerp, Belgium. He learned to play piano as a child, and began playing jazz with local musicians while in his teens. He was the pianist for the Bing Boys in 1924-1925, then picked up trumpet.

As a trumpeter Robert toured Italy with the Jeff Candrix Band, brother of Fud Candrix, and played there with Carlo Benzi and David Bee’s Red Beans. Later in the 1920s he was associated with Harry Flemming and Josephine Baker.

The 1930s saw him working with Jean Robert and Jean Omer in addition to leading his own ensemble, the Cabaret Kings, which toured Europe. He continued recording into the 1950s, also working as an arranger and composer; he led bands in the United States, and Germany following World War II and was later head of the Wurlitzer Company’s Belgian operations.

Trumpeter and bandleader Robert De Kers died on January 16, 1987 in Brussels, Belgium.

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