Cornelis Jan "Kees" Hazevoet was born on 15 March 1948 and is a Dutch ornithologist and former professional jazz musician.
14 Facts About Cornelis Hazevoet
1.
2.
Cornelis Hazevoet played piano, clarinet, and sometimes trumpet during his musical career, during which he was among the leading figures in the introduction of free jazz to the Netherlands.
3.
Cornelis Hazevoet is curator of birds at the University of Lisbon's natural history museum, and an expert on the birds and other fauna of Cape Verde.
4.
Cornelis Hazevoet had an interest in nature and biology from an early age.
5.
Cornelis Hazevoet went to school with bassist Arjen Gorter, who would collaborate with him again after they became professionals.
6.
Cornelis Hazevoet started playing jazz in 1963, and in 1965 began to play free jazz, due in particular to the influence of the American avant-garde jazz pioneer Albert Ayler.
7.
Cornelis Hazevoet was a member of one of bandleader Willem Breuker's first groups in 1966, and played on Breuker's debut album.
8.
Cornelis Hazevoet began a career as a professional jazz musician, playing with among others the group For Adolphe Sax led by saxophonist Peter Brotzmann.
9.
Cornelis Hazevoet was one of the founders of the Amsterdam jazz club Bimhuis in 1973.
10.
Cornelis Hazevoet said in the 1970s that his inspiration came from "the unromantic character of nature", and he called the creation of music a "natural event".
11.
In 1980, Cornelis Hazevoet gave up his jazz career, because he was tiring of work as a professional musician and "had enough of the music scene" by the late 1970s.
12.
Cornelis Hazevoet travelled to northern Africa during the early 1980s, with an interest in both the wildlife and the local music.
13.
Cornelis Hazevoet has become renowned as an expert on the birds of Cape Verde, and published Birds of the Cape Verde Islands in 1995, among a number of other books.
14.
Cornelis Hazevoet served as editor of the journal Atlantic Seabirds, published by the Seabird Group, a British ornithological organisation dedicated to the study of seabirds.