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Johnny Meijer | |
|---|---|
 Meijer in 1987 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jan Cornelis Meijer |
| Born | 1 October 1912 Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Died | 8 January 1992 (aged 79) Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Genres |
|
| Occupation(s) | Accordionist |
| Instruments | Accordion |
Johnny Meijer (born 'Jan Cornelis Meijer' 1 October 1912 in Amsterdam; died 8 January 1992 in Amsterdam) was an accordionist who played classical, folk, and swing.
Amsterdam is the capital city and most populous municipality of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 854,047 within the city proper, 1,357,675 in the urban area and 2,410,960 in the metropolitan area. The city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country but is not its capital, which is Haarlem. The Amsterdam metropolitan area comprises much of the northern part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe, which has a population of approximately 8.1 million.
Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina and bandoneón are related; the harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family.
For a time he was known as a jazz accordionist and his 75th birthday was celebrated at the North Sea Jazz Festival. He was also the subject of a film. [1]
The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam. This is because the Statenhal where the festival was held before was demolished in 2006. As of 3 November 2017 the festival officially will be known as the NN North Sea Jazz Festival.
Besides the popular songs he also played fast swing numbers, Romanian music and classical pieces and was widely recognized as a virtuoso jazz accordionist. In 1974 he recorded the Dutch Swing College Band Johnny Goes Dixie LP, which went gold.
The Dutch Swing College Band "DSCB" is a traditional dixieland band founded on 5 May 1945 by bandleader and clarinettist/saxophonist Peter Schilperoort.
He will be remembered primarily as a live performer of folk music in Amsterdam. He was typically seen during performances with a cigar in his mouth, and his accordion (which can be seen at the Gert Nijkamp Muziekhuis in Apeldoorn) shows several burn marks as a result of this. In the last years of his life, Johnny Meyer was rarely invited to play large performances, mainly in connection with his short temper and his drinking, and thus the King of the Accordion saw out his final days mostly in silence, occasionally playing at weddings and parties.
In a televised interview during the North Sea Jazz Festival 2015 Richard Galliano specifically named Johnny Meyer as a major influence on his work.
Richard Galliano is a French accordionist.
