She got all dressed up yesterday for her birthday celebration at one of Berlin’s Christmas markets. She also had an extra sausage and a slice of meat from an organic corn chicken. Earlier that day, she met a lot of her friends while she went for an extensive walk.
It’s festival season in Europe and each year, there are more and more coming up – even in the smallest cities and towns you’ve never heard of. One of the biggest and oldest celebrates its 40th anniversary this year: the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam. I’ve been visiting this one since the late 80s…
Alto saxophonist Phil Woods died on Tuesday in Pennsylvania from emphysema. He was 83. The winner of the 1956 Downbeat International new star division, the Springfield, Massachusetts born Woods spent many years in Paris where he played at the Cameleon club in April, 1968 with George Gruntz, Henri Texier, and Daniel Humair: Phil Woods and…
The book I’m currently reading is “My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire”. Founding member Maurice White‘s autobiography was published in September and written with Herb Powell. I’m still in the early years of his life when he was working as a drummer, long before Maurice started his groundbreaking, award-winning supergroup. Maurice White died much…
I remember when keyboardist Kiefer’s “Superbloom” EP came out back in 2019, I was immediately hooked on those quasi-simple melodies which had that special spirituality about them, and then turned out to be far more than just that. The jazzy background (Kiefer Shackleford studied with Kenny Burrell) seemed to dive in almost subconsciously, with notes…
This year’s concert of the BigBand of the Deutsche Oper Berlin focuses on George Gershwin. “Summertime – The Fadcinating George Gershwin” is the title of the programme for this upcoming Monday, June 22nd. Since nine years now, the musicians of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper have taken breaks from playing Verdi, Wagner, Mozart, or Puccini to dig…
I know that these days, everything that defies categorization is simply called Jazz. Not only in music, but in all kinds of everyday life matters. This morning, while shopping for our daily doses of Ayran in this heatwave that slows Berlin down to an enjoyable tempo, I came across an apple that was called Jazz….