Toots Thielemans’ 100th anniversary celebrated in sumptuous style with Vince Mendoza and Metropole/Brussels Orchestras

Very few if any jazz musicians in Belgium have been held in such deep affection by both musicians and audiences alike as the legendary guitarist-harmonica player Toots Thielemans. This was very much in evidence last weekend when his Brussels hometown played host to ‘live’ concerts and other arts events to celebrate the centenary of his birth. Toots, who died in 2016 at age 94, is best remembered for single-handedly reinventing the chromatic harmonica as a serious and highly expressive jazz instrument, for an extremely versatile set of collaborations with everyone from Benny Goodman, George Shearing to Elis Regina through to Quincy Jones and Sting to name just a few. Others will know him not by name but by his evocative solos on the movie/TV themes of ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘Sesame Street’. Trivial pursuit-ers might identify him as the man who inspired John Lennon to pick up a Rickenbacker guitar. All this and more was unpacked in a beautifully curated Toots 100 exhibition situated in the Royal Library next to the panoramic main square. This revealing exhibition examined Toots’ extraordinary career engagingly using creative visuals, audio and text. For those into keeping it real there was no better way to spend Sunday morning than rummaging around the bustling flea market in the gritty working-class urban district of Marolles where Toots grew up.

The main performance took place on Toots’ 100^th birthday at the grand concert hall in the Bozar arts centre in front of a 2000-capacity audience. For the first half Brussels Jazz Orchestra, directed by Frank Vaganée took the stage with guests including the Swiss-born harmonica player Grégoire Maret, acknowledged as Toots’ heir by many, including the man himself. Maret, whose performed with Herbie Hancock, Cassandra Wilson through to Elton John among others, plays with the human voice-like characteristics and supple tonal inflexions of his illustrious predecessor. He soloed with a meditative, slightly doleful bottom end, funky midrange and soaring altissimo and added excitement to an otherwise clean-cut backdrop of genre-hopping big band swing. A few other long-time partners of Toots were in the house: veteran American pianist Kenny Werner and the 79-year-old esteemed half-English-Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine whose delicate, playful articulation always had an electric-jazz edge to it. Him and Maret were riveting in dialogue on the guitarist’s ‘Dance for Victor’ even if it felt more like a warm-up for the main concert.

Taking the stage after the interval, the world-class award-winning team of arranger Vince Mendoza and the Dutch Metropole Orkest, with whom Toots first performed in 1961, showed why they’re the best in the biz. Mendoza’s orchestration was sonically breathtaking, the velvety shimmer of strings embracing rather than accompanying soloists Maret, Werner and the haunting South African vocalist Tutu Puoane whose rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ was a highlight; meanwhile the piano-harmonica duo’s reading of Henry Mancini’s ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ threw up some wonderfully ambiguous cadences. Further guests included acclaimed Brazilian vocalist Ivan Lins and his actor son Claudio whose look back at Toots’ Brazilian Project in 1992 felt a little cheesy in places yet was genuinely heartfelt. Mendoza spoke about his own Brazilian awakening inspired by the project before Lins Sr, in sandpaper-toned voice, offered his own intimate tribute song.

The following night’s performance at Jazz Station, a club on the site of an old railway station on the outskirts of Brussels, was a more informal but no less dynamic affair. The Toots connection might have been more tenuous, but a new Brussels-based octet asserted themselves through some astutely crafted, characterful arrangements on originals that evoked the maestro’s melody-rich compositions. Established, home-grown jazz musicians such as the keyboardist Eve Beuvens, pianist Fabian Fiorini and trumpeter Thomas Mayade were among the arrangers and soloists making the biggest impression. Credit due then to the astute programming and committed performances of the organizers and musicians respectively. They helped make Toots 100 both a heartfelt and informative tribute to the legacy of Belgium’s gentle genius.