Jef Gilson has been played over 20 times on NTS, first on 11 November 2012. Jef Gilson's music has been featured on 27 episodes.

French pianist Jef Gilson (real name Jean-François Quiévreux) came up in the '60s and played in a straight-ahead hard bop style. Notably, he featured the young violinist Jean-Luc Ponty on some early recordings.

Gilson was not only a pioneer in independent production, but also an adventurous pianist and composer with a unique approach. He introduced unusual instruments onto his productions such as the balaphone and the farfisa microrgan, but also combined both electric and acoustic basses in order to create a fresh and new sound.

Lloyd Miller, who both played the balaphone and the microrgan, teamed up with Jef Gilson which, in 1962, resulted in a 10” record released on Jef Gilson’s own recordlabel Spirit Jazz.

A couple of years later Hal Singer, a Texas tenor sax jazz giant, moved over to Paris where he met Jef Gilson’s band in which he found a perfect musical blend for his afro centric musical tendencies. The result of the collaboration between Jef Gilson and Hal Singer was ‘Soul of Africa’, a monumental record, one of the catalysts for Afro-Parisian scene that fascinated so many musicians and music fans in the 70s and 80s.