Trivia

He conducted many Belgian entries in the Eurovision Song Contest and had his own Big band orchestra titled "Francis Bay and His Big Band".

Francis Bay followed musical education at the conservatorium of Mechelen and started his musical career at the orchestra of Paul Godwin.

In 1948 he formed his own orchestra and in the middle of the 50's he became the leader of the orchestra of the National Radio broadcast Institute (NIR).

Francis Bay produced many albums and composed theme songs for game and entertainment programmes on BRT. As conductor of the National Radio and Television Orchestra Francis Bay conducted the orchestra at the Flemish national selection shows Canzonissima.

In 1937, he joined Paul Godwin's Jazz Symphonians, a high-profile light-entertainment orchestra based in the Netherlands, simply "because there was more money to be made".

In Stockholm, one of the international reporters had noticed that Francis Bay was by far the oldest of the conductors taking part in the Eurovision song contest - "a grandfather among his remarkably young colleagues". In a way, Bay was the last of the Mohicans. In Eurovision, all other conductors who had taken part in the first editions, such as Franck Pourcel, Øivind Bergh, and Dolf van der Linden, had already been replaced by musicians of a younger generation.

While his lessons at the academy were purely classical in outlook, the young student earned some money by playing in local ballroom orchestras. Meanwhile, his love for the clarinet was starting to be overshadowed by a maniacal passion for his other study object, the trombone. "I was simply in love with the trombone," Bay recalled. "When I went to sleep, I put the trombone under my bed. I wanted to start every day by playing a little tune. Needless to say, the other members of my family weren't that happy with this habit. Still, for years on end, 'I slept with the trombone' in order to get started practicing each morning as early as possible.".

As a teenager, Frans, who was by no means an excellent pupil at regular school, studied music for up to ten hours a day.

Allegedly, though definite proof is lacking, he even conducted an orchestra himself at the age of eight.

For ten years, Francis Bay worked and lived in the Netherlands, taking his wife Liza and their first child, Georges, to Amsterdam. There, in between performances with Paul Godwin's orchestra, he followed private lessons with violinist and music pedagogue Oscar Back.

Frans' father Jan Bayezt, who was a clerk at the Belgian State Railways, dedicated all his spare hours to music, being the conductor of his neighbourhood's concert band, Sinte-Cecilia. Naturally, Jan Bayezt was his son's first music teacher, introducing him to the basics of music theory as well as to several instruments.

Having started out on the clarinet when he was seven years old, young Frans learnt to play all brass instruments, whilst also mastering the flute and the guitar.

In December 1914, several months into the First World War, Frans Bayezt was born at his uncle's farmstead near Rijkevorsel; his parents lived in Mechlin (Mechelen), but they had fled to the countryside when the Germans bombardment of their town began.

The Eurovision songs which Francis Bay conducted never were really successful. The best result was a sixth place in 1959, but, more often than not, the Flemish candidates finished near the bottom of the scoreboard. Bay himself felt he knew what the core of the problem was, as his son Leo recalls: "He always said Belgian composers were reluctant to take part in the national selection. They were afraid to become Europe's laughing stock with a bad result.

He led the Eurovision orchestra for a total of nine Belgian Eurovision entries between 1959 and 1979, working with performers such as Bob Benny, Jacques Raymond, Louis Neefs, and Ann Christy.

His Latin-influenced LPs are sought-after collector's items, and prices of 100 euros or more apiece are no exception.

Former musician Frans van Dijk describes Francis Bay as "a distant person who did not befriend his musicians, a very good and strict leader, and an excellent musician.".

In 1979, Francis Bay retired—or rather, was forced to retire—something he never forgave the BRT for; he completely faded from the public eye and cut himself off entirely from his former bosses and the media.

In 1958, Francis Bay and his orchestra won the "Golden Gondola" in Venice.

Francis Bay's record productions are countless, and during numerous national tours—as well as international ones between 1959 and 1979—the big band came into contact with world-class artists. Whether in vocal or instrumental contexts, the band members enjoyed the privilege of interacting with top-tier talent from around the globe.