Johnny Meijer (born 'Jan Cornelis Meijer' 1 October 1912 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

; died 8 January 1992 in Amsterdam) was an

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

ist who played classical, folk, and swing. For a time he was known as a jazz accordionist and his 75th birthday was celebrated at the

North Sea Jazz Festival The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam. This is because the Statenhal where the festival w ...

. He was also the subject of a film.Jura Film
/ref> Besides the popular songs he also played fast swing numbers, Romanian music and classical pieces and was widely recognized as a virtuoso jazz accordionist. In 1974 he recorded the

Dutch Swing College Band The Dutch Swing College Band "DSCB" is a traditional dixieland band founded on 5 May 1945 by bandleader and clarinettist/saxophonist Peter Schilperoort. Highly successful in their native home of The Netherlands, the band quickly found an interna ...

Johnny Goes Dixie LP, which went gold. He will be remembered primarily as a live performer of folk music in Amsterdam. He was typically seen during performances with a cigar in his mouth, and his accordion (which can be seen at the Gert Nijkamp Muziekhuis in Apeldoorn) shows several burn marks as a result of this. In the last years of his life, Johnny Meyer was rarely invited to play large performances, mainly in connection with his short temper and his drinking, and thus the King of the Accordion saw out his final days mostly in silence, occasionally playing at weddings and parties. In a televised interview during the North Sea Jazz Festival 2015 Richard Galliano specifically named Johnny Meyer as a major influence on his work.

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Biography (In Dutch)
Jazz accordionists Dutch jazz musicians Musicians from Amsterdam Dutch accordionists 1912 births 1992 deaths 20th-century accordionists {{Netherlands-musician-stub