Biography Lo van Gorp

At age 13, Lo decided to take up the saxophone. He spent his teens playing in numerous pop-, soul- and jazz-bands in his hometown Leiden, the Netherlands. After college, he was admitted to the conservatory of Hilversum and studied under Ferdinand Povel. 

All the King’s Men

During his studies he formed the hiphop-jazz group “All the King’s men” together with Reyn Ouwehand, Tom Beek, Martijn van Iterson, Robin Koerts, Jan van Duikeren, Raymond Scott, Evelyne Derks and Ad de Jong. After winning the 1994 Heineken crossover-award, the band recorded an album which sadly never saw the light of day. 

Marco Borsato

In 1995, Lo started touring the theatres with Hans Visser (Flairck) and branched out to singing. Soon he was invited to be a backing vocalist in Marco Borsato’s band (Holland’s biggest selling artist since the early 90s).

Session work

Mainly through his work as a backing vocalist, he steadily became one of the top session-musicians of the country, resulting in numerous (TV-) shows and recording sessions with the Metropole Orkest, the New Amsterdam Orchestra, Trijntje Oosterhuis and Oleta Adams.

The Princess Project

In 2008 Lo released his first album together with Simone Pormes and Karel Boehlee: The Princess Project. “Storybook” is a high-end album composed by Karel and Simone, featuring some of the best jazz musicians the Netherlands (and Belgium) had to offer at that time, i.e.: Peter Tiehuis, Hans van Oosterhout, Hein van de Geyn and the late Toots Thielemans.

Liquid Spirits & Leon Ware

Later that year, the album “Music” by Liquid Spirits was released. This group, led by Manuel Hugas and Wiboud Burkens had 4 lead singers, one of which was Lo. LS worked with soul-legend Leon Ware on the song “Melodies”. Subsequently, in 2010, Lo visited Leon in LA and they’d end up writing the song “In another Time” wich appears on his debut solo-album.

Steely Dan

In his early years, Lo’s ears were drawn to Donald Fagen’s “Nightfly”. Its perfection and complexity, combined with catchy melodies and immense creativity keeps on inspiring him to this day. So It’s no surprise that he formed a band called The Royal Dutch Scam to honour and celebrate the music of Steely Dan. And he is now touring the theatres with this group of like-minded music friends.

Martin & Garp

During 2020’s Covid crisis, Lo recorded an album with producer Phil Martin and the duo Martin & Garp was born. Their album “Sentimental fools” was released in January of 2021 and was well recieved in Japan, Germany and France. It’s a tribute to the late 70s, early 80s Softrock/Yachtrock era.

DAWN PATROL

Right after Sentimental Fools was released, Phil Martin and Lo (Martin&&Garp) started a collaboration with the young and talented musicians Ruud van Halder, Rik van der Ouw and Baer Traa, resulting in an even more sophisticated tribute to Yaghtrock/AOR. Their album Bring on the good times was also released by P-vine Records in Japan in the spring of 2022. First single Bring on the good times was featured on Dutch National Radio NPO 5. Keep on believing featured in Spotify’s New Music Friday Playlist.

Dri3man

Dri3man (sounds like Dream-on in English) is a group that focuses on playing mostly Westcoast music from the 70s and 80s, with an emphasis on singing in harmony. Lo’s colleagues and friends Ferry van Leeuwen and Nick Bult are both great singers and instrumentalists. Check out their many livestream performances! Dri3man’s first single “Embrace you”/“Omarmen” was released in both English and Dutch in February of 2021 and a full album is coming up.

Going solo: ‘True Friends’ and ‘The Works’.

Lo’s solo album True Friends, which he produced with Patrick Drabe, was released in June 2022. 

It was featured in ‘Light Mellow Searches’ by the famous Japanese music writer Toshikazu Kanazawa.

True Friends is about truth in friendship, in music. For many years Lo and Patrick worked meticulously on this work of art. Calling their best (music) friends to the studio and craft every song together. The very best studio musicians of the Netherlands worked on this album, consisting of only originals written by Lo, Patrick and their dear “true friends”. A timeless musical journey through jazz, soul, pop and rock.

The first single Fisher King featured in Spotify’s New Music Friday Playlist and The right thing was featured on Dutch National Radio NPO 5.

A fantastic new album is in the making as we speak, it’s called ‘The works’. It’s about life in general, the journey we all make, encountering all kinds of archetypes, guiding us to who we are and will be. The first single ‘The Explorer’ has been released on April 26th, 2024. It deals about never ending curiosity, leading us to new insights and views on the world, nature, people and life in general. Acceptance of oneself, in relation to the world surrounding us, still believing in the possibility of better days to come.

The second single was released on april 26, 2024. ‘The Gambler’ is about taking chances in life. Most of us dream about wealth, celebrity in some way. Living on the edge. It’s a shaky balance, before you know it, you’re stuck in a world you can’t easily get out of.

Other collaborations

Lo had the pleasure to work with the following artists:

Al Jarreau
Paul Carrack
Chaka Khan
Jacob Collier
Laura Mvula
Michael Kiwanuka
Vince Mendoza
Jules Buckley
Roger Hodgson
Raul Midon
Giorgia

Leon Ware
Oleta Adams
Zucchero
Riccardo Cocciante
Frank McComb
Billy Ocean
The Trammps
Kool &the Gang
En Vogue
Three degrees
Ladies of Soul

Candy Dulfer
Joss Stone
Madeline Bell
Hans Vermeulen
Anita Meijer
Lee Towers
Rob de Nijs
Danny Vera
Frank Boeijen
Ilse de Lange
…and many more.