All good things must, as they say, come to an end. The Stadtgarten Concert Season did so last Saturday in real style with a double-fluted attack on the senses from Top French duo RoSaWay and local heroes Jin Jim. Even the sun stayed out all evening to celebrate. That green verge opposite the Alter Zoll Beer Garden is going to look gloomily empty until next Summer when the only sound will be the gentle tap of Petanque balls rolling across the dusty ground. But first, let’s enjoy a last evening of music in the sunshine…

3songsbonn had particular reason to be nervous about Saturday. I’ve known Stéphane Avellaneda since his days drumming for the Ana Popovic Band, so when he asked if I could recommend any venues for his current musical venture RoSaWay I suggested Stadtgarten and contacting Institut francais Bonn. The result was this evening’s show. I told Stéphane what a great location it was, and about the picnickers on the grass, and the busy beer garden, and the Rhine Promenade. It really is all perfect – unless it rains…

It’s 6 pm and I’m sitting on that sunny grass bank squinting into the sunshine at a stage as Rachel Ombredane puts down a flute that’s just been shimmering in the bright suns rays. Having just laid down a cool solo, she has to hold her hand over her eyes to see the soundman she’s speaking to at the desk in front of her. Yes indeed. There is a God. and he is on my side tonight.

RoSaWay are Rachel Ombredane & Stéphane Avellaneda. A flute and drums duo who have literally moved from the rear of the stage to the front. Stéphane as noted, was a powerhouse Blues drummer behind Ana Popovic. Rachel has lent background vocals to many a top musician, including Ed Sheeran. “We wanted to do something of our own” says Stephane when I asked how the duo’s collaboration came about. “To write and play music that was not centered around other people’s requirements” Hence the name of the band: RO and SA for Rachel and Stephane’s initials and WAY – doing things their own WAY.

The sound of the duo is certainly unique. pre-programmed rhythms driven with the added edge of a live drum sound. over which Rachel’s distinctive silky vocal and hypnotic flute run. That said, it’s a bit bewildering at the start because there is clearly an unattended drumkit on the stage but the first sound you hear – is a steady drum beat. It possibly made a few listeners wonder how much of what they will be hearing will actually be live. It quickly becomes clear though that Stéphane isn’t going to spend the evening playing a mere ‘air tom tom’. He was rated one of the top five Blues drummers of 2015 and he soon shows his skills. Truth to tell, I’ve seen him take some great rock solos in the past and would love to have heard that side of him tonight – but it’s not what Rosaway are about.

Not that what we get is a disappointment. It’s Rachel’s first-ever show in Germany tonight she proudly reveals before giving us every reason to believe this will be the first of many to come. It’s not just the sunlight glittering off of those silverspangled trousers that keeps the audience’s attention. The lady seems to eat up the stage the way Marilyn managed to eat up the camera on film. mesmerizing. If the pied piper were a woman it would be this Lady. Her sound very quickly hypnotizes each and every listener.

When I asked Stéphane beforehand to describe the RoSaWay sound, his attempt seemed to put together so many styles into one… funky, jazzy, electro… That I thought I’d try and pin it down for myself. The current disc’s title song ‘Girl’ has a 70’s disco groove. There’s a deep-dive into jazz standards with ‘Blue Skies’ that has a strident beat taking it out of jazz, into funk and somewhere on the road to Techno. Then there’s ‘Walk’ that’s definitely a crowd-pleaser live with its built-in handclap rhythm. But then there’s that extra techno layer where synthesizer elements come into play. I was worried how the audience would react to the duo’s unique style but shouldn’t have been. They came, they played and they conquered. RoSaWay are very clearly on their way to great things.

Jin Jim will not need any introduction to the jazz lovers on this site. The various band members seem to appear regularly in other formations – such is their ability and inventiveness. Daniel Manrique-Smith was to be found the week before on JazzTube as part of the Flautronica duo and on 6 September guitarist Johann May will also be on ‘The Tube’. Which is all rather pleasing since Jin Jim actually had their first success as a band in the Jazz Tube Festival of 2013. The following year, the quartet won a „Future Sounds“ competition at the prestigious Leverkusener Jazztage festival beating out a field of nearly 200 entrants.

So it is then that in 2024, Jin Jim are a natural and celebrated part of the local Jazz landscape. Their sound is a little easier to categorize than that of RoSaWay. But still a pretty complex one. It’s obvious from early on in the set that despite the central flute sound there is a hard rock fundament in the Jin Jim sound. This is not least down to Johann May’s Fender Stratocaster sound and the drumming of Nico Stallmann. One of May’s musical inspirations is Jazz-fusion guitarist Mike Stern and Stern’s inspirations, such as Hendrix and Clapton, reflect in May’s own style. Stallmann seems to always create a drum sound far heavier and louder than the relatively light kit in front of him. When they move into heavy rock territory as with the main part of ‘Turning the Page’ there is certainly more of John Bonham than Billy Cobham about his playing.

Ben Tai Trawinski’s bass playing ensures that even when things get heavy there is more than enough groove for dancers in the by-now-packed audience to swing their hips and shake their legs too. On top of the Rock drumming, Prog-jazz guitar and funky bass comes a sweet pop melody courtesy of Daniel Manrique-Smith’s superlative flute playing (in case you were forgetting this is indeed billed as ‘Flute Night’!) Therein lies the magic and the success of Jin Jim. Often squeezing several musical styles into a single composition and often playing all of them together at the same time. It takes a talented collective of musicians to make such compositions work, but they are, and they do.

In seemingly no time at all we are at the end of the 2024 Stadtgarten Season. The decision to move the stage until it was directly facing the parkland has proved to be an inspiration. The audiences have been large and happy throughout. It was still fairly light at 10 pm when that first evening on 2 August came to an end. At 10 pm on this day of our Lord, 31 August it’s dark. The constant lights of the beer garden and the changing colored ones above the stage are just enough though to light up faces in the audience’s front rows. They are all smiling and applauding. I can’t see the faces beyond those front rows, but I can hear the applause ringing loudly right back to Markus Lüpertz’s Beethoven statue in the park.

Very possibly the largest applause of all is deservedly reserved for Bonn’s official Rock and Pop Representative Hans-Joachim Over who has himself spent the last weeks thanking all the many institutes, offices, sponsors and bands that have graced the stage throughout August as well as praying for sunshine every Friday and Saturday evening. ‘HaJo’ as pretty well every musician in Bonn knows him, will hopefully soon be making plans for next year down by the Alter Zoll. In the meantime, that bank of grass is going to look very empty without the picnic baskets and blankets.