Background
Except for one piano lesson from his mother he is completely self-taught. He learned the piano by listening to records of Albert Ammons, Johnny Maddox, Winifred Atwell, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis.
Except for one piano lesson from his mother he is completely self-taught. He learned the piano by listening to records of Albert Ammons, Johnny Maddox, Winifred Atwell, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis.
He is regarded as one of Europe"s finest jazz pianists, covering the full spectrum of jazz styles from his early days of Boogie-woogie to Chicago traditional Jazz, swing and contemporary jazz. In 1954 Rob Agerbeek and his family arrived in the Netherlands. He started playing the piano at the age of 17 or 18.
In the first years of his career Agerbeek is mainly into Boogie-woogie and later in his career he expands his playing styles with bebop, hardbop and dixieland.
He accompanied more than hundred, mainly American, Jazz musicians such as Ben Webster, Hank Mobley, Dexter Gordon, George Coleman, Johnny Griffin and Gene Ammons. Rob Agerbeek performed at international jazzfestivals as the Paris Jazz Festival, Hammerveld Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Kongsberg Jazz Festival and the Berlin Jazz Festival.
On 17 November 1996 Agerbeek celebrated his 40 years jubilee as an allround jazz pianist when he was presented with the membership of honour of the Hague Jazz Club. Rob Agerbeek still occasionally performs with his trio consisting of himself on piano and Ben Schröder on drums and Alex Milo on bass.
Joining in on vocals on several performances are Jazz singer Mirjam van Dam, Susanne de Rooij and Brigitte Soffner.