David Linx is a jazz singer, lyricist and composer, born in Brussels on March 22, 1965. He is Belgian by birth and upbringing and has been based in Paris since about 2000, which is where his recording career, his prizes and much of his working life have been centred ever since. His father, Elias Gistelinck (1935-2005), was a contemporary-music composer and trumpeter who produced for the Belgian broadcaster RTBF and launched the Jazz Middelheim festival in Antwerp, according to French Wikipedia, and the house was often full of musicians. Linx began on flute and piano, then took up drums, and listened first to singers such as Betty Carter and Ella Fitzgerald. He then discovered Mark Murphy, who became a main influence, and accompanied him on drums at the age of sixteen. His own biography credits him as a drummer on two Jazzcats records of the mid-1980s, Deborah Brown's My One and Only Love and an album by Erling Kroner and Horace Parlan. In 1988 he gave up drums to become a singer.

As a boy of about ten he read James Baldwin and set out to meet him. After an introduction at a reading in Amsterdam, Baldwin received the teenager at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1982 and became a kind of adoptive father, according to French Wikipedia, and through Baldwin he met Miles Davis. His godfather, the saxophonist Nathan Davis, brought him to Paris and introduced him to Kenny Clarke, who taught him drums and with whom he lived for a time. His first record as a singer, Hungry Voices (Miracle!, 1988), has Roy Ayers on vibraphone on two tracks and Viktor Lazlo singing on one. A Lover's Question, recorded in 1985 and 1986 and issued by Les Disques du Crépuscule in 1990, sets poems read by Baldwin to music by Linx and the guitarist Pierre Van Dormael. On tracks 6 to 8 the band includes Steve Coleman on alto saxophone, Slide Hampton on trombone, the trumpeter Jimmy Owens, the saxophonist Pierre Vaiana and the pianist Diederik Wissels, and Bob Stewart plays tuba. Label Bleu reissued it at the turn of the 2000s with a book of the poems and stories in French translation.

In 1992 he formed a voice and piano duo with Wissels, and the two have recorded together ever since, in duo, quartet and symphonic settings. Kamook was recorded in January 1992 with the bassist Philippe Aerts and the drummer Dré Pallemaerts, and If One More Day (Les Disques du Crépuscule, 1993) followed. Up Close (Label Bleu, 1995) was recorded in Brussels on March 11 to 14, 1995. In a Citizen Jazz interview published in February 2026 Linx called it something new, a man singing jazz in Europe on original music and lyrics, and said it was a critical and commercial success. Bandarkâh (1998) brought in Marc Ducret on guitar, the percussionist Mino Cinelu and the saxophonist Fabrizio Cassol. Heartland (EmArcy, 2001) added the trumpeter Paolo Fresu, the bassist Palle Danielsson and the drummer Jon Christensen, and This Time (Le Chant du Monde, 2003) marked ten years of the partnership. One Heart, Three Voices (2005), with Fay Claassen and Maria Pia De Vito, led to a three-year tour. His own biography says he has led the jazz vocal department of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels since 1995 and that he also teaches in Amsterdam and at Siena Jazz.

France became his base around 2000. In a February 2012 interview he said he had lived in Paris for twelve years, after periods in New York, in Amsterdam and in Brussels, and that he had left Belgium partly because France recognises the status of an artist with social cover, which Belgium did not. In 2019 he told an interviewer that Belgium was far too small to build a career, and in the 2026 Citizen Jazz interview that he had understood early that France was where he had to be. His French-language album L'Instant d'Après (Polydor/Universal, 2001) was produced by Craig Street, with Marc Ribot, the guitarist Kevin Breit, the bassist Greg Cohen, David Torn and Scott Robinson in the band, and Laurent Cugny arranged the horns and woodwinds on three tracks. He was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, the year of a Grand Prix of the Académie Charles Cros according to his biography, and a Knight of the Order of the Crown of Belgium in 2008. He sang in the jazz opera La Tectonique des Nuages by Laurent Cugny (Signature, 2010), which his biography says won a Grand Prix of the Académie du Jazz that year. Follow the Songlines (Naïve, 2010), with Maria João, Wissels, the pianist Mário Laginha and the Orquestra Nacional do Porto, was followed in 2011 by a Victoires du Jazz award in the category for French or French-produced vocal artists, which he shared with João. Rock My Boat (Naïve, 2011) with the organist Rhoda Scott and André Ceccarelli, and A Different Porgy & Another Bess (2012) with João and the Brussels Jazz Orchestra came next. He also made a Claude Nougaro tribute with Ceccarelli, the pianist Pierre-Alain Goualch and the bassist Diego Imbert, À Nous Garo (Just Looking, 2013), after singing on their Le Coq et la Pendule (Plus Loin Music, 2009).

His later records alternate Paris bands and Belgian orchestras. Winds of Change (Just Looking, 2013), a quartet date with Wissels, features Ibrahim Maalouf, the saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart, the guitarist Manu Codjia and Donald Kontomanou. Brel (Jazz Village, 2016), recorded in Ghent with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, won an Edison Jazz Award in the Netherlands in 2017, the year the Octaves de la Musique gave him a lifetime award in Belgium. 7000 Miles (2017) is a quartet record with Ceccarelli, Goualch and Imbert. Skin in the Game (Cristal Records, 2020), with the pianist Grégory Privat, Chris Jennings on bass, the drummer Arnaud Dolmen and Codjia, was honoured by the Académie du Jazz and the Académie Charles Cros, and in 2019 he was named voice of the year at the Victoires du Jazz. Be My Guest - The Duos Project (2021) pairs him with fifteen guests including Tigran Hamasyan, the pianist Ran Blake, the vocalist Theo Bleckmann, Hamilton de Holanda, Nguyên Lê and Ducret. On Shoulders We Stand (Enja, 2022) was made with the pianist Guillaume de Chassy and Matteo Pastorino, and Real Men Cry (Cristal Records, March 2025), recorded with Privat, Jennings, Dolmen and the trumpeter Hermon Mehari, was named among the nominees for the Académie du Jazz vocal prize for 2025. By early 2026 he was teaching in the new jazz department of the École Normale de Musique de Paris, and from December 4 to 6, 2025 he played three concerts at the Sunside in Paris that looked back over his career. In April 2026 came Trama Latina, a trio record with Fresu and the pianist Gustavo Beytelmann.

Linx describes himself as a singer-songwriter who plays his songs like a jazz musician, and the writing of original lyrics sits at the centre of his work: his songs with Wissels have been taken up by Sheila Jordan, Maria João, Fay Claassen, Maria Pia De Vito and Norma Winstone, according to his biography. He names Mark Murphy among his sources, he told Citizen Jazz that he copied Ella Fitzgerald until he found himself again, and French Wikipedia adds that he cites Miles Davis for holding notes without vibrato. His repertoire runs from his own songs through French chanson (the Nougaro and Brel records, L'Instant d'Après) to American standards and the Gershwin score of Porgy and Bess, and French Wikipedia says he has worked with Brazilian musicians including Ivan Lins, Lenine and Hamilton de Holanda. He often works in large formats, with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, the WDR Big Band and the Porto orchestra. His label and festival relationships are largely French, from Polydor and Naïve to Jazz Village and Cristal Records and from Vienne and Marciac to the Sunside, and his teaching posts now include Paris as well as Brussels, Amsterdam and Siena.