Concert reviews
Another beautiful start of Autumn Sunday (that seemed like more of a mid-Summer SUNday) outside the Parkrestaurant Rheinaue. This afternoon’s guests were the Stefan Ulbricht Boogie Trio, who answered all of their description perfectly – being a trio and playing boogie piano. No complaints from me then, or the many people enjoying a cool beer or glass of wine on the trestle tables that seem to stretch far into the distance and beyond.
Don’t tell the weather, but it’s now Autumn. Better keep quiet and enjoy sunny days with good music in the open-air. Speaking of which… The Park restaurant Rheinaue still has some live music up its sleeve between now and the end of September. This Sunday it was the turn of Jazz guitarist Ali Claudi and his Trio to do the entertaining – which they did in fine style.
It might look smoothly asphalted to the eye, but the road to Dotty’s Sports Bar for Folk Club Bonn‘s September meet was a rough one indeed. A long one too, as John Harrison will tell you. Involving numerous meetings with the owner and correspondence between Folk Club and the powers that be in Bonn. In the end, though it was a worthwhile journey. The Hockey pitch at Dotty’s proving to be an excellent open-air venue, and the weather being much kinder than anyone had a right to expect in the early days of Autumn. Perhaps God is a folk music fan? Or perhaps he just realised that good music was good for the souls of his creations in this Pandemic riddled World we are all enduring.
A month goes so quickly. On 1st August ‘One Take Toni’ (Anton Weber) took to the streets of Bad Godesberg as the opening street musician of the Verein ‘KunstKitsch’ and on Saturday local musicians Cayu and co-organizer Cynthia Nickschas brought the Klangstationen initiative to a colourful musical close outside of Bergfeld’s Biomarkt who initiated the whole Street Music project.
Wolfgang Scheelen has quite an impressive list of musicians that he’s appeared with, including Ray Charles, Fats Domino and Dizzy Gillespie. On this fine Summer afternoon in Bonn, Scheelen is laying down dome mean blues harp solos with Bastian Korn on piano and Benny Korn on drums, aka The Step Twins. The SWB Sommerfestival is back with sunshine and music at the Parkrestaurant Rheinaue
Girls certainly do wanna have fun. This girl does at any rate. Erja Lyytinen has been a top-line purveyor of quality slide guitar for some years now, but she still hits the stage with an infectious enthusiasm that would put many a newcomer to shame. Since her last appearance at Bonn Harmonie there is also a new disc to enjoy – ‘Another World’ with it’s slick packaging is a sign of slick playing onstage. Is that good or bad? There are unlikely to be any complaints about the standard of playing or the enthusiasm from tonight’s equally enthusiastic audience for sure. It’s a very different Erja Lyytinen though from the one I saw here some years ago with Davide Florene, Roger Innis and Miri Mietinen, where the line generally greyed only between Blues and Rock. The current Erja Lyytinen set blurs into Jazz, Pop and Soul with heavier Rock overtones than before.
Bonn Folk Club 109 was a Singers Night. So why was almost every inch of ‘stage’ floor filled with Harps? Because it’s Folk Club, that’s why – where, outside of the rule ‘No Amplification’, nothing is written in stone,and everything is the better for it. Join me for meet #109, in the event room at Dotty’s in Dottendorf.
Around ten years ago The Ortszentrum Dottendorf looked set to close its doors. The solution it seems was for the citizens themselves to look after business. The idea of a cultural centre was put forward and now, as a new decade begins, the Bürgervereins Dottendorf/Gronau e.V. seems to be on the crest of an ever growing wave as The first Dottendorfer Jazznacht show of 2020 with Dad’s Phonkey proved on Friday.
