Ewout Pierreux is a Belgian pianist who has worked with musicians including Ron Van Rossum, Bert Joris, Frank Vaganée, and Dré Pallemaerts. His current collaborations are with the South African/Belgian vocalist Tutu Puoane, Rebirth::Collective, Jelle Van Giel’s ‘Close Distance’, Marjan van Rompay, and the Hnita Big Band. Ewout teaches jazz piano and ensemble at De Kunsthumaniora, an arts high school in Antwerp. He and his wife, Tutu Puoane, have two children aged seventeen and eleven.
UK Jazz News: What is the best advice you received about balancing/juggling parenthood and career?
Ewout Pierreux: To be honest, I actually don’t remember anybody giving me or us real advice on that particular topic. Other than some people maybe being a bit sceptical of the combination of being a musician and parenthood – nevermind in our case, with both my wife and me being musicians (who also work and play together a whole lot).
UKJN: What information or advice do you wish you’d received but didn’t (and had to learn through trial and error or on the go)?
EP: I wish I had known how much babysitters would cost us! No, seriously, there’s been a period where a large part of the revenue of our merch sales on gigs went to babysitting. Another, more profound thing is probably that it’s pretty important to not be away from your kids for too long, especially when they are still small. So some touring is possible (when you have people close to you that can take good care of your kids of course), but the duration of individual runs should be kept to a maximum of a few days/nights at a time. We went overboard a couple of times, and in retrospect we really regret that.
UKJN: Your top tip(s) for other parents in jazz:
EP: Only make babies with somebody who is not a jazz musician, and who has a stable, well-paying day job and lots of free time. Ok, I’m kidding of course but the clichés about unstable life and income are definitely a thing. More profound: make babies with someone you really love and who really loves you. Shower your kids with as much love as possible, and spend as much time with them as possible. Don’t go away for weeks. Yes, play gigs and hang out until late if you want or need to, but be home and up at 7am to have breakfast with them and bring them to school. Keep your career more local for a while until they have reached a certain age. Get a great, small babysitting team of people that your children really like. Don’t change babysitters constantly. And don’t be stingy when you’ve found a great babysitter who your kids really like – pay them well. They are going to love working for you, and in my opinion they are a very important piece in the puzzle of the emotional stability of your family when your kids are still small.
UKJN: Travel/gigging/tour-with-child advice. This can be gear or gadget-related, or pertain to approach/what to do/what not to do:
EP: Taking kids on tour definitely has romantic upsides – our kids have travelled more than most other kids their age, and they have seen and experienced some really interesting places from a very young age. But it is really important that the tour schedule is not too hectic when they are with you. Always make time to make the trip feel like a family holiday for them. Leaving them in hotels every night with foreign babysitters they don’t know is a bad idea. Take your own babysitter they know and love if you can, if you know you’re gonna be a bit too busy.
UKJN: What is one way that figures or structures in the jazz industry could better support parents who are working jazz musicians?
EP: Pay us properly. Seriously. Not only parents – all musicians.
UKJN: What has surprised you about becoming a parent and remaining engaged with your professional activities and ambitions?
EP: Becoming parents has inspired some of our best work, I think. A few songs were written that wouldn’t have been written if it wasn’t for our kids. ‘Mpho’, the song I wrote for our first-born daughter, is some kind of a hit in the jazz loving community in South Africa, the home country of my wife. Playing that song in Johannesburg and hearing audience members join in and sing along gives me goosebumps. I think life becomes more real when you have babies, so music also becomes more real. I learned a thing or two about human resilience – we’ve been constantly tired for a good while, because it is an undeniable fact that combining parenthood and playing gigs and touring is a pretty intense thing, especially when the babies are still small. But, again, the clichés are true: they grow really fast, and it all balances out in the end. We humans can do anything when we put our minds to it, as long as there’s enough love involved. I believe that if you love music enough, music is always going to love you back – and if you love your kids enough, they are always going to love you back. And the thing about love is that there is endless space for it – so there’s always going to be space for kids and space for music. Right now our kids are happy and independent, and music has never felt better.
UKJN: What boundaries have you set for yourself as a parent in jazz (could be related to travel/touring, riders, personal parameters, child care decisions, etc.)?
EP: Our kids are really growing up now, so the situation changes, but when they were smaller we only worked together locally, so we could be home the next morning. And if travelling was involved, one of us would be home. We did two international tours of about 10 days when our daughter was still small and left her with my parents and my sister, and in retrospect we really regret we did that – not because she wasn’t well taken care of, but because she missed us too much – and we avoided that situation afterwards. About child care/babysitting: we got ourselves a good babysitting team of 3 young ladies who were absolutely wonderful with our kids. One of the three of them would almost always be available when we needed help outside of our family. We consistently avoided having to leave our kids with people they didn’t know – that almost never happened, and the very few times it did, good friends of ours stepped up and helped out, from whom we knew they were going to take very good care of our little ones. When we did take them on tour, we always looked for really comfortable and child-friendly lodging, pretty fancy hotels with great breakfast and pools and such, and we always tried to have sufficient family-time, for them to have as much of a regular family holiday vibe as possible.
(*) Parents in Jazz was started (first as ‘Mothers In Jazz’) by vocalist Nicky Schrire in August 2022. The initiative aims to create an online resource for jazz industry professionals with children, those contemplating parenthood, and jazz industry figures who work with and hire musicians who are parents. The insight of the musicians and administrators interviewed for this series provides valuable emotional, philosophical and logistical information and support that is easily accessible to all. “Parents In Jazz” shines a light on the very specific role of being both a parent and a performing jazz musician or jazz arts professional.
