A full Jazz calender starts the year – including an Anniversary at Sonjas Jazz Pub and a Harmonie appearance for Rod Mason and his Hot Five. Sonjas in Friedrichstrasse celebrates a 25 th anniversary and proprieter Sonja Reul is celebrating there on 9th January. On 22nd January the ever popular Rod Mason & His Hot Five are at the Harmonie and lots more Jazz is coming your way.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Best of 2011
Here is my ‘Best of 2011’ list – based on the concerts I’ve attended and the CD’s I’ve got round to hearing this year. In balance it’s been a worrying 12 months musically in Bonn. Years-end sees Promoters looking for a replacement venue for Museumsplatz, an end to Rheinkultur; December even saw the local Folk-Club looking for a new ‘Zuhause’. The Harmonie is still a jewel offering great music, but generally popular music looks like a threatened species. Bottom line: If you love live concerts – get out to them in 2012 and show your support!
Now, onto my ‘Best of 2011’…
Real Music from the Rhine – Snowkrash
Yes, this is the Bonn music site 3SONGSBONN and yes the lady on the left is making music. Actually, it’s the most traditional of all musical sounds in Bonn – the sound of the River Rhine itself. John Harrison explains how Barry Roshto and Ursel Quint under the name Snowkrash, are setting Father Rhine to music…
Get The Cat – She Knows Them All (Pepper Cake)
Astrid Barth’s Band Get the Cat first came to my attention playing at a tiny pub in Bonn. There was no stage to play on, and they couldn’t ‘come back’ for an encore because there was no backstage to return from. Circumstances meant the set was purely acoustic so I came away with the impression Barth was more of a jazz singer.
The latest CD She Knows Them All however sits firmly in a rootsier category, due very much to Barth’s fellow ‘Cats’ drummer Ralph Schläger, bassist Till Brandt and especially guitarist Philipp Roemer (who, curiously, studied Jazz). The sum total of whom is a solid Blues Rock sound.
Country, Blues & Gambas at the Folk Club
Lothar Heinrich
‚From Henry Purcell to Robert Johnson’. That’s what the top line of John Harrison’s typewritten notes for the evening said. A tall order, even for Bonn Folk Club, but John wasn’t bluffing as the December meet revealed. He even had a new instrument up his sleeve (or in the evenings case, one might say his poncho) in the form of a Gamba.
Ana Popovic – Quite a Year
125 solo shows, 38 Festivals, a new CD, 10 weeks in the US Billboard Blues Chart, ‘Pick of the Week’ choice in America’s ‘US Today’ newspaper, a live DVD, opening for BB King, jamming with Buddy Guy… it’s been quite a year for Ana Popovic, and The Harmonie in Bonn was where she chose to close it – the final show of an eventful year, and what a gig it was!
Endenich was definitely the place to be on Saturday, and I don’t mean just for their Christmas Market. For those who were lucky enough to get hold of a ticket and find a corner of the Harmonie’s concert hall to squeeze into this was an evening to brighten up the coming concert-less weeks ahead before the 2012 season kicks off again in earnest.
Johnny Winter in Bonn
Winter in Museumsplatz - 2007
Great news for Bonn’s many Blues fans – The legendary Johnny Winter is booked for an appearance at The Harmonie next March.
Winter, who last played at the Museumsplatz in May 2007 to an audience of thousands with brother Edgar, recently released a new CD ‘Roots’ to critical acclaim and is said to be in better health than for a long while.