Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that the links to click on to the right of this screen once again include the Jazz Tube logo. Further good news for Jazz fans and English speakers this week is that, in celebration of starting it’s sixth year next week (5 August), Jazz Tube now has an English version of it’s website online. It’s particularly appropriate given the international nature of the music on offer which, as Founder and co-presenter Thomas Kimmerle, explains “ is underlined by the musician Waldemar Lezckowski from Bonn who is performing with a 5-member formation from 4 different nations at this year’s JazzTube. Flutist Morgana Moreno, a student of the Bonn musician Michael Heupel and now living in Rotterdam, will take the audience with Brazilian sounds from her home country in the southern globe”.
Bookended by a showcase concert at Alten Zoll to start, and a three day showcase Festival at the Pantheon Theatre to finish, Jazz Tube 2017 promises to be bigger and better than ever.
Since it’s conception from the SWB and Thomas Kimmerle The Jazz Tube competition format itself has proved to be a winning formula and so remains the same. On Fridays from 5 pm, three bands will each play three half-hour sets, spread over the stations “Hauptbahnhof / Thomas-Mannstraße”, “Universität / Markt” and “Heussallee / Museumsmeile”. There is a quarter hour time lag between the start of each set so that listeners can get to hear each band if they wish to take part in the voting (we’ll get to that later!) but each year there has been, to my eyes anyway, an increasing number of people just taking a seat on the floor and staying put all evening such is the pulling power of a Jazz ‘chill out’ come Friday evening!
Morgana Moreno – heussAllee/Museumsmeile (15 Sept)
Ah yes, the voting! Not compulsory but fun all the same. if you meant to move on from one show but loved it so much you stayed in one place as I described, then you must have enjoyed what you heard – and wouldn’t it be great to tell both the musicians and the public that this band is worth listening to? Then VOTE! The website will be the place to visit for this and if enough people agree with you then you will get the chance to hear your favourite musicians again at the Grand Finale. But who to vote for? The competition will run over five Fridays from 25 August to 22 September at the tube stations Hauptbahnhof / Thomas-Mannstraße”, “Universität / Markt” and “Heussallee / Museumsmeile”. The top voted bands will appear as a part of the final three day Jazz Tube Festival at Pantheon (3-5 November)
Julia Kriegsmann (Mary & the Poppins) Heussallee/Museumsmeile – 1 Sept
In total this years Jazz Tube will see 24 concerts on 9 days between 5 August and 5 November involving some 75 artists so a bit of planning may be necessary to ensure you don’t miss anything. Help is at hand – The full itinery is HERE
To make sure that language is no excuse to being informed, the promised site IN ENGLISH. No excuses – see you there!
And finally… As a taster of the kick-off concert at the Alter Zoll on 5 August featuring the Alex Wünsche Trio and LUCIEL featuring Sophie Grobler. Here is a taster of what to expect from the latter…