He began his career as a guitar player. Around 1949 he joined the jam session in Paris with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and others.

He moved to the U.s.the. around 1952 in which he was a member of Charlie Parker's A lot-Stars. He played & recorded by owning list prefer Ella Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, Bill Evans, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Astrud Gilberto and others.

The jazz standard by Toots Thielemans is "Bluesette" where he used whistling and guitar in unison. His mouth harp can too become heard within motion-picture show scores prefer Midnight Cowboy and in TV software such as Sesame Street, the Belgian TV series Witse and the Dutch TV series Baantjer.