Mark Bogaerts

This page is dedicated to the earlier years of Mark Bogaerts' creative journey. For more recent music and the actual projects we invite you to visit the respective MySpace pages or website: Himalaya MySpace, Himalaya website, Aarlzon MySpace, Cosmic Yogi MySpace.

A brief presentation for those who do not know him.
Mark Bogaerts first started to play piano in his childhood. At 14 he switched to guitar. At 18 he added saxophone. He also studied some violin and classical vocals. Next to his classical music studies he first played rock but went to jazz and free music soon afterwards. He played with a lot of bands, orchestras, projects and musicians in many different styles and line-ups, ensembles he formed himself or as a sidemen in other groups. We will just mention a few of them: Skull Intensity (see below), Morton Fork Gang, Fred Van Hove and WIM big band, Garrett List with Amin and Rashied Ali (see below), the Simpletones, and many more ... . Over the years he has been a very prolific composer too, writing several hundreds of compositions. (for more cv info visit the Himalaya website).

In 1991 he had a complete and profound turn in his life. He started to really deeply study practical philosophy, psychology, meditation and other intense practices. This turned his whole vision of life completely upside down. Slightly he stepped out of the music scene and started questioning the sense of all this and of course the sense of music in all its aspects. During several years he didn't give concerts but he did not stop playing. He looked for new approaches and directions in music and how to go more deeply. A search for the essence, not only in music but in the whole existence. The quest to reality and eternity, to truth and authenticity.

During this period, in 1993, he also met his sitarguru Pandit Ashok Pathak and started studying classical Indian music first on his guitar. One year later he started to study sitar. After several years intense study of the raga system he began to use the sitar also in combination with Western instruments.
In 1994, together with Saskia Vanhoegaerden (see MySpace page), he started the group Himalaya (see website and MySpace page), a blend of Western and Eastern music, dance and video. More recently he also started two new groups: Aarlzon in 2009 (see MySpace page) and Cosmic Yogi in 2008 (see MySpace page). In these groups he expresses all his knowledge and experience, composing, playing all his instruments, sitar, saxophone and guitar. Each of these bands have their own specific direction, repertoire and identity: Himalaya is actual new world music, Aarlzon is going more in the instrumental jazz direction and Cosmic Yogi is experimenting with psychedelic sounds using also the human voice and video projections.

The music on this page

During Indian summer 1986 Mark Bogaerts went to New-York. He visited and jammed with a lot of musicians. He met drummer Rashied Ali and his son bassist Amin and proposed them to come over to Brussels doing some touring in Europe together. They did a first trio tour in 1987 playing in Holland, Germany and Belgium. The next year they did it again with trombonist Garrett List. A mobile studio recorded the last gig of that second tour. You can hear a few samples of these live recordings made by the 'Mark Bogaerts - Garrett List - Amin Ali - Rashied Ali quartet' at the 'Ancienne Belgique' in Brussels on May 30 1988: 'The Move Groove', 'Dodecapunk' and 'Skull Intensity'.

A few months before his trip to New-York, Mark Bogaerts recorded material for a solo album in the studio 'Métamorphoses d'Orphée' led by Annette Vande Gorne. Assisted by sound engineer Michael W. Huon they recorded guitar solo's, duet's in re-recording from alto and baritone sax or guitar and alto and a longer piece for up to 7 saxophones. You can hear some samples of these recordings. 'Ask Her', a duet for alto and baritone sax, 'Slat Blues' is alto sax and guitar and finally the sample 'Gerucht met Zwiering' where the middle part theme is followed by a baritone sax solo joined gradually by more and more saxes ...

In September 1988 Mark Bogaerts returned to the same studio, this time alone doing all the work himself. He made an intense use of the studio techniques making some special compositions. You can hear samples of two compositions: 'String Journey' using only sounds made with guitar and 'Bamboo Manipulations' using only sounds made with saxophone.

In the early 80's Mark Bogaerts formed the trio 'Skull Intensity' with Eric Moens on bass and Gianni Manente on drums. After intensive rehearsing and composing they started playing gigs. The lucky people who saw and heard this flamboyant trio live were very impressed, they still remember it nowadays. One of their last concerts was at the Jazz Middelheim festival in Antwerp on August 15 1985. You can hear two samples of this concert: 'Sphere' and 'Spew Rap'.

This is just a little part of the recorded work, there is many more material that exist with other projects and groups led by Mark Bogaerts.