Jazzfest Berlin
The Berlin Jazz Festival is one of the oldest and most prestigious jazz events in Europe. As a "Berlin Jazz Days " in 1964 by Joachim -Ernst Berendt and Ralf Schulte- Bahrenberg founded ( with the support of George Wein ), the Festival enjoys a reputation as a progressive and yet traditionally-minded jazz event of European character. It takes place in the autumn and will be hosted by the Berliner Festspiele.
History
The Berlin Jazz Festival was created as part of the Berlin Festival, whose director Nicolas Nabokov 1964 approached Berendt to organize a jazz festival as part of the Festival in 1964. A highlight was the initial appearance of the second Miles Davis Quintet - ( with Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter), with the live recording of Miles in Berlin on 25 September. Originally, this should remain a one-off event - Jazz salons had the Festival in 1959 and 1961 organized (where Berendt was peripherally involved ). Berendt, Schulte- Bahrenberg and wine were then directly approach the Berlin Senate and reached a continuation as an independent event from 1965, where the jazz festival was moved to the November and acted independently of the Festival. Support was also now a festival newly established company from Berendt, Schulte- Bahring and wine that could secure favorable conditions for themselves as the payment of a dividend income. The first venue of the Berlin Jazz Festival was the recently completed designed by Hans Scharoun Berlin Philharmonic. Berendt was the ARD, ZDF, win the State of Berlin and the federal government for the financing of an internationally designed jazz festivals. One of the first Berlin Jazz Days ( whose theme black and white, Africa - Europe was ) sent Martin Luther King a foreword in which he emphasized the power of jazz music as a strengthening of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Important American musicians, who had retired a while as Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans, chose the Berlin Jazz Days for their return to the stage. The jazz critic Nat Hentoff, said that the Jazz Festival are "Europe's, if not the World 's leading Jazz Festival ". Berendt oriented any festival in certain topics, for example, the 1965 encounter with Japan and 1966 Jazz and Baroque (the Swiss jazz pianist George Gruntz was the first time included ). Berendt also laid emphasis on the widest possible range of featured jazz styles and the use of the festival for experiments. You should not simply present only as on the U.S. festival known jazz musicians you could hear on tours in jazz clubs and concerts otherwise. 1967 used Berendt the festival to make under the slogan " Jazz Meets The World", the first World Music Festival of Jazz: The multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry led his Symphony for Improvisers on a bossa nova, as well as a Jazz meets India concert were given and in " Noon in Tunesia " played a group of Bedouin musicians with George Gruntz, Sahib Shihab, Jean -Luc Ponty, Eberhard Weber and Daniel Humair. 1968 split Don Cherry's Eternal Rhythm Free Jazz in the audience ( with the live recording of the album of the same name from the festival ), the critics were but looked like Berendt, the Cherry as one of the foremost exponents of world music, mostly enthusiastic.
In 1968 there came to outreach of Peter Brötzmann establishing the Total Music Meeting as a counter-event that put entirely on free music and primarily European musicians.
Berendt saw the Jazz Festival also because of the special situation of Berlin as a means in the East- West conflict to have a relaxing effect and invited Eastern European musicians. Symptomatic of this was also his composition commission to Oliver Nelson 1970 ( Berlin Dialogues for Orchestra ).
1972 came in the mirror to massive attacks on the management of the Jazz Festival by Berendt and his all-powerful role in jazz in Germany by Siegfried Schmidt -Joos ( Drained ). Berendt and Schulte- Bahrenberg fought for instance in the program of the Jazz Festival in 1972, nevertheless himself Berendt's position as head of the jazz party left no longer hold. Berendt's successor was George Gruntz, who had been entrusted 1972-1994 with the artistic direction. At the very first festival of Gruntz in 1973, which actually went well ( Miles Davis came to the festival for the fifth time ), it came to a head when the critical audience in Berlin, the Duke Ellington band auspfiff ( similar to some 1969 before Sarah Vaughan, as the '68 audience did not like her prom dress, which reminded them of an opera singer, and her repertoire of standards ). The Ellington band had previously completed a strenuous program of concerts in Eastern Europe and was overtired (Paul Gonsalves nodded according to Take the A -Train on the stage ). Ellington soon had to cancel it and was admitted to the hospital with heart problems (the program continued the present George Wein in his place at the piano continued ). How Gruntz commented could JazzFest book thanks to its financial resources at an early stage musicians and their agents took advantage of this to previously arrange tours of jazz musicians in Europe. The behavior of the audience gave the festival but in the eyes of many American jazz stars have a bad reputation and Gruntz had temporary problems with their commitment. Gruntz increasingly focused on fusion and jazz as world music. In the line it came in 1980 between Schulte- Bahrenberg and Gruntz to a conflict and after a trial is had to the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1981 Jazzfest call and the line took over the Berliner Festspiele GmbH. In the view of Gruntz was Schulte- Bahrenberg the last remaining representative of the original festival society, who wanted to maximize the period specified in the original founding treaty of profits by public appeal obligation of famous jazz musicians, while Gruntz himself wanted to exploit the budget and thus promote experimentation, quite the sense of Berendts original program ideas for the festival.
1978 there was a scandal when Miriam Makeba and Abdullah Ibrahim ( Dollar Brand ) had not sufficiently discussed before the concert and could not present a full evening program. There was unrest and riots in the audience and sit-ins, which could still be caught by the fact that the festival management, the approximately 2,200 spectators invited in the second evening concert Makeba and Ibrahim free at the Philharmonic. Carla Bley then composed for the festival in 1979 with reference to the behavior of the audience boo to you too. How Gruntz remarked in his memoirs, the time of Buhrufer was then but already over and he had for Carla Bley's performance specially those involved.
Albert Mangelsdorff put as artistic director from 1995 to 2000 focus on European developments.
Since the 1990s, the festival fell into the criticism; the allegation was raised that the orientation of the program is stagnating. While Mangelsdorff was able to increase the quality of the festival again, Peter Schulze accusations of arbitrariness was made.
The main venue changed from the House of World Cultures in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Also be played in jazz clubs Quasimodo and A -Trane and the Academy of Arts Hanseatenweg. ARD will broadcast a portion of the concerts and also financed a portion of the budget. With a five-day program with artists such as Lizz Wright, Joe Sample, Steve Swallow and Charles Lloyd Nils Landgren ended the direction of the festival in November 2011. Since 2012, the jazz journalist and music critic Bert Noglik is artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival
Artistic Director
- 2002: John Corbett
- 2003: Peter Schulze
- 2008: Nils Landgren
- 2012: Bert Noglik