Things will be back to their (boringly) normal self again on Friday and Saturday evenings as this weekend saw the final JazzTube concerts of 2015.
I caught two of the last band’s on Friday and can only say once again – whoever doesn’t win is also a winner and the biggest winners of all are the commuters of Bonn who get to hear such excellent music to lighten their travels.
If you turn around at one of the Jazztube concerts on Bonn’s stations the chances are there will be a man wearing glasses and a concerned expression behind you. Thomas Kimmerle is the man behind JazzTube itself in fact, and I managed to squeeze a few minutes out of his busy day to ask where the idea came from and naturally as soon as the topic was jazz – time and questions flew by…
Wednesday sees the start of Crossroads broadcast by Rockpalast at the Bonn Harmonie. Sunday then could be termed ‘The calm before the storm’ with smooth jazz courtesy of the exotically named Lyambiko and the ‘Junger Männer’ backing. Definitely a show for sitting rather than standing and listening rather than dancing.
“I scream, you scream,
everybody wants ice cream!”
They were the words I got back when the name Chris Barber was mentioned to friends and colleagues. There’s a whole lot more to Barber than that though, and John Harrison’s review of the Big Chris Barber Band at the Bad Godesberg Stadthalle is by far the longest review on this site to date. Even so, it barely scratches at the surface of Barber’s career or his importance to modern music.
A promoter of Early Blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. A founder of London’s Marquee Club – THE place for every aspiring Pop/Rock star of the 60’s and 70’s to play (and where the likes of Jagger and Hendrix cut their teeth after hearing the band’s Barber ‘brought over’ to the UK). Learning ground for legendary musicians like Lonnie Donegan and Ken Colyer.
“He changed my life, and probably yours too” is how Hugh Laurie describes Barber in an interview
Let John Harrison tell the Chris Barber story through his excellent review that follows. Take a break mid-way for an ice cream if you want…
His life reads like a who’s who of Blues: Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Alexis Korner, Lonnie Donegan, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are just some of the men that Chris Barber has helped on their individual ladders to stardom. in an exclusive 3songsbonn interview before his appearance at the Stadthalle in Bad Godesberg on Saturday (10 Jan) the legendary British Jazz pioneer told John Harrison about both the joys and the struggles as Blues and Jazz set off to conquer the UK and Europe for the first time in the 1950’s and 60’s.
The July JazzTube offerings were very much ‘Ladies Night’ affairs. Julia Kriegsmann’s sax with Ton at Hauptbahnhof, Ukranian Tamara Lukasheva with excellent scat-jazz vocals at Uni/Markt, and Maria Preus with Antiquariat giving Gypsy Swing a young and talented face at Museumsmeile. Good reason then to take two ears and one camera on the Subway once again.
Having seen Astatine at Bonn Folk Club, Sonia’s Jazz Kneipe and now at the Kunstgarten I still feel I haven’t seen the band around Ana Maria Leistikow in the ideal setting. Songs with the intensity of Cole Porter’s ‘Get out of Town’ really need a smoky club, a dark stage, and a single spotlight that blinks out into darkness on the last poignant note.
