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COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Niels Lan Doky was born on October 3rd, 1963 in Copenhagen, to a Danish mother, Birthe, and a Vietnamese father, Thai, who had recently moved to Denmark after living many years together in Paris. Birthe was a major singing talent who got a record contract with the Phillips label at age 17 and by age 19 had several Danish hit songs to her credit. A pan-European English language program at the time arranged for students in schools across Europe to have pen pals in other countries in order to train their English writing skills and that is how Birthe met Thai. The latter grew up in Hanoi as the youngest of 9 children in an affluent family of Vietnamese silk traders. Due to the wars and unstable political climate in Vietnam, Thai’s parents sent him to France at age 9 to grow up with a foster family there and to enroll in the French school system. Although Thai was in love with music and played classical guitar from a young age, his parents refused to allow him to pursue his passion and study music and instead forced him through medical school. However, on Thai’s own initiative (and  paying for it himself with income from various odd jobs) he attended the conservatory in Paris where he studied with stellar guitarists Alexandre Lagoya and Ida Presti. When Birthe eventually moved to Paris to be with Thai, the two of them formed a voice/guitar duo that became a very popular night-club act in Paris playing for the jet-set of the 1950s and early 60s, including such notables as Marlene Dietricht, Sophia Loren, Sidney Poitier, and Harold Lloyd. By 1963, Birthe and Thai were ready for a change of lifestyle and moved to Copenhagen to settle down and start a family. Niels was their first of two sons and he was born that same very eventful year of 1963 which saw The Beatles release their debut album, Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Thai worked part-time as a doctor at the state hospital and part-time as a guitar teacher, Birthe gave up singing professionally and eventually became a licensed nurse. 

A great source of joy and spiritual relief for everyone in the family was whenever Thai would play his guitar at home and listen to records. Growing up with music in the house, Niels and later his younger brother, Chris, naturally developed an interest in music, which gradually evolved into a great passion.  When it later became apparent that both sons possessed significant musical talent, Birthe and Thai became incredibly proud and excited.

One night at home, Thai was sitting at the dining table in the living room with his guitar in his lap while sorting through an old pile of sheet music. Suddenly he came across a piece of music entitled “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Spanish classical composer Francesco Tarrega. Thai unfolds and opens up the music sheet and begins to play the piece on his guitar. The piece was extremely beautiful and compelling. Nearly hypnotic. A 5 years old Niels was in bed in his room adjacent to the living room, only separated by a small hallway. When he heard the first notes from a distance it immediately caught his interest, to the point that he instinctively got up and opened the door in order to hear the music more clearly. Niels took a few more steps forward and stood in the open doorway between the hallway and the living room. As he was standing there, mesmerized by the intense beauty of the music, something very unexpected and peculiar occurred: Niels suddenly realized that he was literally paralyzed; totally unable to move. He was not afraid however, but felt he was in good hands and at the right place at the right time. He experienced the sensation of feeling like an empty transparent bottle being filled gradually with pure clean water - except in his case the water was not water, but instead notes of music, that poured into him and gradually filled his body, from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. Niels quickly realized that it is the beauty of the music that propels him into a state of expanded consciousness. Just as the piece of music reached its final notes, Birthe walked up  behind Niels and put her arms around him just as the final chord rings out. At that same moment, Niels’ paralysis ended and he watched his hands as he moved them while realizing that he had now returned from his paranormal musical journey. At that very moment, Niels decided – secretly and privately – that he wanted to learn to play music, as he realized that music has magical powers. From that point on he became relentlessly compelled and devoted to solving the mystery of music, one note at a time. His hands were however still too small to reach around the neck of a guitar and he had to wait a few more years before starting guitar lessons, and the wait was a great source of frustration to him.

Two years later, Thai was now giving Niels (now 7) guitar lessons at home. Niels was a fast learner and his guitar playing skills develop very rapidly.  It was very apparent that he had a natural talent for music. Two years later, Thai registered Niels (now 9) to take part in the Berlingske Tidendes Musikkonkurence, a prestigious classical music competition organized by one of Denmark’s largest National newspapers. Niels won 3rd prize. The following year Thai registered Niels (now 10) to once again take part in the same competition. This time Niels won 2nd prize.

At age 11, Niels began to show an interest in the piano at home and manages to find the first few notes to the piano melody from the soundtrack of the Robert Redford/Paul Newman movie “The Sting”. Niels went to the local library’s music section to find the film’s soundtrack album to try and learn the rest of the melody. Niels found the album in the jazz section and his curiosity led him to discover various other piano albums in the same section by jazz pianists such as Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Erroll Garner, and others. The album “Night Train” by jazz piano virtuoso Oscar Peterson especially captured his interest. Niels became a devoted fan and at this time, decided to pursue excellence in the art of jazz piano playing.

By age 12, Niels had abandoned the guitar and was passionately into jazz piano. Birthe and Thai enrolled Niels for piano lessons in a local music school. But Niels was drawn towards the freedom of improvisation found in jazz and felt uncomfortable and rebellious against the rigid classical method taught at the music school. He lasted less than a year before dropping out to continue jazz piano on a self-taught basis. He attended jam sessions every Sunday afternoon at the Copenhagen jazz club, Vognporten, where he started to develop group playing skills and meet other – and mostly much older - musicians who were generally bowled over by the young boy with the highly unusual talent. Members of the audience regularly came up to Niels in the intermissions to ask him about his age and were always very impressed when he gave them an honest answer.

Niels was generally a fast learner (he even skipped 4th grade as a result). His musical talent evolved at such a speed that he was offered his first professional engagement at 13, working regularly as a pianist at Vingården (The Vineyard), a jazz club in central Copenhagen. On the way to his first gig, he had a traumatic confrontation with the police who stopped him on his bike for unknowingly violating traffic rules. From that moment on, Niels was constantly worried about the police and feared being denied access to jazz clubs because of being underage.

Thai and Birthe were very excited about their eldest son excelling in music. However, this turned into a great shock when Niels, now 14, announced that he intended to devote his life to becoming a full time, professional musician. Thai and Birthe’s first instinct was opposition. They both had first-hand knowledge about the insecurity and hardships that artists go through.  And they did not want their children exposed to the music scene, notorious for its lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and bad morals. Niels' decision created conflict and drama with his parents for a short time. With Niels fully devoted to his passion, Thai often had to go out to jazz clubs late at night to physically pull Niels off the bandstand and force him to come home to get some sleep before school the next day. Gradually, Thai realized that he was essentially repeating his own father’s attitude shown towards him at that age. With the help of Birthe’s Danish perspective, Thai decided to radically change his attitude and go in the complete opposite direction. Thai and Birthe eventually became fully committed to providing both of their sons full encouragement and support to pursue their passion for music. 

At this point in time (1977), there was a large community of American ex-pat jazz legends living in Copenhagen and Niels met most of them, including Ernie Wilkins, Kenny Drew, Horace Parlan, Sahib Shihab, Richard Boone, Ed Thigpen, and Mercer Ellington.  The Copenhagen jazz scene was quite vibrant, with great Danish musicians performing regularly such as Bent Jædig, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Mads Vinding, Ole Kock Hansen, Thomas Clausen and Alex Riel. And many international jazz greats visited on a regular basis, including former ex-pats Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon. Great jazz was available frequently and regularly in Copenhagen when Niels was a teenager, so in spite of early-morning school commitments, Niels would go out several nights a week to check out sets from the likes of Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, George Coleman, Billy Higgins, Cedar Walton, Bob Berg, Randy Brecker, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis,  Frank Foster, Woody Shaw, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Jaco Pastorius, Weather Report and many more. 

And when he wasn’t at shows, he and some of his classmates would get together to smoke cigarillos and drink liqueur while  and dig into stacks of LPs from Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, George Duke, Billy Cobham, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett, John McLaughlin, Return To Forever, Al Jarreau, Lee Ritenaur, Earth Wind and Fire, The Brecker Brothers, David Sanborn, Steely Dan, Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, and Gino Vannelli. 

By the age of 15, while attending high school in the daytime and working in jazz clubs at night,  Niels got his first major break playing with the great trumpeter and composer, Thad Jones, who was living in Denmark at the time. Before their first concert together, Niels explained to Thad that he was honored and privileged for the opportunity to work with such a master and very assertively begged Thad to give him advice and constructive criticism on his playing. Thad was politely reluctant and indifferent. The first set went well. The intensity of Thad’s personal charisma on stage was overwhelming for Niels who felt the music rising to levels that he had never experienced before. Niels was however clearly lagging behind in spite of Thad’s joyful and positive encouragement during the performance. In the intermission, Thad pulled Niels aside and gave him his first essential major musical advice: the interactive improvised nature of jazz depends on all of the players’ ability to listen. So he tells Niels to never listen to himself but instead to listen to all of the other players at all times, even when he is playing a featured piano solo himself. Niels was puzzled about this new instruction but proceeded to try it as the intermission ended and the second set began. Niels quickly realized that the quality of the music rises tremendously when he followed Thad’s advice and instruction. Thad watched Niels on stage with an excited, proud and content smile on his face while the music rose to new heights. 

Thad encouraged the young Niels to move to the US and pursue his life as a jazz artist there and at the end of 1979, he wrote a letter of recommendation to the prestigious jazz conservatory, Berklee College of Music in Boston, urging them to accept Niels as a student. In 1980, right before his last year of high school,  Niels attended a Summer program at Berklee and he was so enthused that his parents agreed to send him back full time immediately following his high school graduation. Niels graduated high school in the Summer of 1981, 17 years old, and soon after found himself at Copenhagen airport about to board an airplane on a one-way ticket headed for the USA.