Glenn performing "Symbiosis" at the North Sea Jazz Festival 2005
At
the age of 35 his career as a musician, arranger and composer had
started to lift off within the Dutch scene and his talents were being
increasingly recognised abroad. Through his many cooperations with
established and upcoming pop artists who feverishly sought after his
fresh arrangement and compositional talents, Glenn may well have
single- or even double-handedly changed the face of popular music in
the Netherlands, and with his own Corneille/Roelofs Trio have left a
jazz legacy large enough to influence the genre on an international
scale.
Born in Venlo on the 13th July 1970, he was put
at a crossroads early in his life. Glenn loved football. So did his
brother. “Well if he’s going to play football then I’m going to play
the piano!”, and so it was that Dogan became a professional soccer
player and Glenn’s gift for music found its own player.
I
first heard of Glenn while living in Maastricht in 1995, where my best
friend had seen him play with a band called Whapzz. A newly opened cafι
called Marks & Kampstra was scheduling live jazz every Monday
night. Glenn’s name appeared on the bill so we decided to check it out;
there was hardly another Monday evening in the following 3 years that
we couldn’t be found listening to the Corneille / Roelofs Trio. En
route to the second night we decided to dedicate a website to this
great new talent whom we had ‘discovered’. After the gig we introduced
ourselves and put the idea to him. “Ah, yes, and you could call it
…Whapzzsite!” In recognition of our mutual taste for silly humour, we
became immediate friends.
Glenn was a student at
the Maastricht Conservatorium music school and as the buzz around him
increased, this usually sleepy town became an entirely new scene of
creation and cross-inspiration, with Marks & Kampstra as the
epicentre of Art school students, actors, directors and budding
musicians. In July 1997 Glenn graduated with an exceptional 10, Cum
Laude. Everybody present at his graduation concert knew that there was
nothing standing in the way of this virtuoso to make it big, and
perhaps making a nice tune or two along the way.
His discography since has far exceeded a couple of jazzy tunes. Whapzz brought out one CD entitled ‘Bound West’ which included some of Glenn’s early compositions, notably the moving ballad ‘For Chan’ dedicated to his lifetime girlfriend.
Many projects in many different styles followed, but his main passion remained with his Trio. ‘Live at the Maaspoort’
was the first recorded document to come out with five tracks recorded
at a concert in his town of Venlo, with ‘Bond’ as one of the most
mesmerising compositions the trio made its mark with, and ‘Elvis’, to
give an indication of how prolifically fine-tuned the three were, was
created on the spot at the afternoon rehearsal before the show.
Glenn and his family moved north
to Baarn, as many offers were coming in to play with popular artists
who all congregated around the Dutch Media town of Hilversum. Time for
the Trio was limited, and Glenn also had his two kids, Quincy and
Nathan to support. Needless to say he became a big hit in the Pop
scene, and enjoyed working to make this music special, sharing all his
love for music with whoever he worked. His collaboration with the new
girl on the block Do was a success story on its own, with hits at home
as well as in the UK and beyond.
Wanting to please
everyone became an Achilles’ heel for Glenn, since everyone sought his
talents, time away from home increased with the countless bookings,
studio recordings and television appearances. He even had his own show,
kind of, with ‘De Notenclub’, a musical game show where two teams would
guess the titles of songs and then sing them accompanied by their
pianist. This is where Glenn became a household name throughout The
Netherlands and Belgium, even spurring off his own fan site.
I
saw Glenn one more time at this year’s North Sea Jazz festival, where
he was performing ‘Symbiosis’ in full with Saxiom 5. A great sadness
struck me half way through the concert which at the time I attributed
to the fact that it was the last day of the festival in the Hague,
where it had been for 30 years, before its move in 2006 to Rotterdam.
With hindsight it seems as that was to be his last jazz concert, and
possibly a requiem to himself. We spoke shortly afterwards, before an
interview for Radio West at the festival. He told me that he had been
shaken by the concert Keith Jarett had given three nights before. “The
man is so deep, so complex, it really put me into place. That’s the
level I want to get to, that’s what I want to achieve.” He told me
seriously, then double-taking with a heavy Limburg accent “ Welkom to
the wonderous world of Glenn Corneille!”
On a bright
Monday afternoon on August 29, a total of 2000 people gathered in Venlo
to say their last goodbyes at an emotional and unprecedented funeral
service. From 12-midday family, friends, fellow musicians and fans
passed by his open coffin in the Saint Martinus church, after which a
service was held with musical and spoken tributes. It was here that it
became clear what an impact Glenn had made on the people around him,
and on the music they made together. His trio buddies, drummer Geert
Roelofs and bassist Werner Lauscher, were joined by Bert van den Brink
to play Corneille’s ‘Everlasting Question’, a painfully beautiful
ballad to life’s unanswered mysteries. As the piano’s wide open chords
rose into the churches’ high arches, everyone privately remembered
their moments with the man, his whirlwind personality, his endless
stream of jokes, his openness to new experiences and collaborations,
his love for his family, his children, his friends and his music.
A final song played as he was carried out to rest under the calmness of green trees;
‘I haven't really died, I’ll only be dead when you’ve forgotten me’.
“ Will always love my loved ones.
If it is possible I will keep watching over them.
