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Composer Jerry van Rooyen was born on December 31, 1928 in The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. Jerry took his first music lessons at age eight and immediately joined a brass band in his hometown as a trumpet player (the trumpet was his favorite instrument). van Rooyen studied for several years with the lead trumpet player of the Netherlands Symphonic Orchestra and further studied music at the Dutch conservatory in Den Haag, where he eventually graduated as a music teacher. In 1944 van Rooyen joined a Dutch revue show as first trumpet player. He toured Indonesia, America, and Scandinavia with such famous Dutch musicians as Ernst Van't Hoff, Boyd Bachman, Bengt Hallberg, Ake Persson, and Lars Gullin. In 1955 Jerry signed on as first trumpet player and arranger for the Dutch radio orchestra The Ramblers and performed with his own jazz combo in numerous Amsterdam nightclubs. van Rooyen went to Paris, France in 1959, where he was a conductor and arranger for Fantana-Records and worked with such artists as Michele Legrand, Claude Bolling, and Gilbert Becaud.
In 1965 Jerry moved to Berlin, Germany and became the arranger for the S.F.B. Dance Orchestra. van Rooyen composed the wonderfully groovy and offbeat experimental jazz scores for the Jess Franco pictures "Succubus," "Red Lips," and "Kiss Me, Monster." Moreover, he also supplied the funky music for the films "The Vampire Happening," "Castle of the Creeping Flesh," "Death on a Rainy Day," and "How Short is the Time for Love." His marvelously hip composition "The Great Train Robbery" was used as the opening credits theme for the hilarious cult indie comedy "Free Enterprise." Jerry did the opening theme of the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. He then returned to the Netherlands, where he worked as both a producer and program director for the AVRO radio station as well as continued producing and arranging for various jazz orchestras all over the world. In 1985 van Rooyen became the director of the WDR radio big band and toured all over Asia. He resided in both the small village of Laren and Cologne, where he lived in an apartment in Europe's biggest skyscraper. His hobbies included yoga and adding to his enormous collection of CDs and EPs. He's the brother of renowned trumpet player Aik van Rooyen. Jerry died at age 80 on September 14, 2009.
