Fabien Degryse

Professional guitarist for thirty years, Fabien Degryse has participated in a wide variety of musical projects: concerts with guitar big bands, with a symphony orchestra, or as a soloist. Jazz, blues, French or Cameroonian chanson… Tours in Europe with Panta Rhei, a European traditional music group, in Africa, Canada, or Chile with L’Ame des Poètes, a chamber jazz trio, and concerts in Asia with his own trio. He has performed in front of thousands of people on the Grand Place in Brussels, at Patrimonio with Toots Thielemans, in Taipei with John Ruocco, or before a handful of dedicated jazz fans in small clubs in Liège, Tunis, or Hanoi. He greatly appreciates this diversity, focusing each time, regardless of location or circumstances, on the quality of the sound, the melodies, the improvisations, listening to other musicians, and ultimately on the beauty of what the group is creating.

Since 2011, he has dedicated himself more specifically to his solo project on acoustic guitar. No effects, no loop station, no playback. Just his Martin guitar and him, performing a repertoire of jazz standards everyone knows, interpreted in his own way with a strong emphasis on improvisation. He has had the opportunity to participate in the recording of about thirty CDs and has produced eight under his own name. The most recent, Summertime, was released in 2015.

In addition, he has been teaching for over twenty years at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel and the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, attracting students from Taiwan, Madagascar, Mexico, and across Europe. He is the author of a guitar improvisation method, Improvisation Jazz through Arpeggios, published by Combre in 1999 and still available today. The originality and effectiveness of this method has led many of his students to say that they finally found a rational way to progress in their improvisation. Finally, he has taught jazz guitar in numerous week-long master classes in Belgium, France, West Africa, and Taiwan.