FEBRUARY 2004

The jazz festival in werden,Essen,
by Rory Braddell


The jazz festival in Essen is not really on the same level as an event like the Cork Jazz Festival. It took place in a disused factory in a suburb of Essen, and there was only one stage. This village, Werden, is a small suburb of Essen separated from the city by forest and the Ruhr river. There is a lake formed by the Ruhr which flows through a small low valley. On one side is Villa Hugel, which was the old home and estate of the Krupp (steel) family. This is now open to the public, and nearby there is Essen's Stadtwald, which runs down this side of the river. On the other side is the little village Werden, which is quite nice, but rather upper class by Essen standards. There is a nice old building with a big courtyard that houses the Musikhochschule. This was once home to the art and design section of Essen University, but it has been taken over by the music school, who have built two nice concert halls.

The programme of the festival was a mixture of rather diverse kinds of jazz music, and to mix everything like this was perhaps not such a good idea, as each act was only allowed to play for an hour and there were some that should have played longer.  On Friday, the first band to play was called "Autofab," a German band that played rather loud aggressive jazz. It was hard to take them seriously, as they made rather hideous mimic gestures now and again. The drummer was kind of blowing out his cheeks and then he suddenly started miming playing the drums for a few minutes! This was followed by a duo (Flugal Horn and Piano), who were both from the Ruhr area. It was a relief after the first band, as they performed more quiet jazz standards, which were far more palatable to the ear after the earlier noise. The best event this evening was the electric guitarist Nguyen Le, an oriental born in Paris, who played a sort of homage to Jimi Hendrix. This small man, who constantly has a smile on his face, takes real enjoyment out of his electric guitar playing. He stood there surrounded by his various electronic gadgets and pedals and produced his own idiosyncratic blend of Hendrix electric guitar style mixed with various other musical idioms like African rhythm, soul, rock and jazz. He was accompanied by a very good Algerian drummer (Karim Ziad), a bass player (Michel Alibo), and a female singer (Cathy Renoir). The music was an interpretation of Hendrix's rock and roll style electric guitar used as a basis for creative improvisation, rather than any attempt at using Hendrix's music simply for cover material.

Unfortunately the following night did not approach this remotely, and the best gig out of the four gigs performed was the Achim Jaroschek Quartet. This multinational group of musicians have formed a hard core experimental jazz outfit. The improvisations are not lyrical solos, but an integrated attempt to build up great big walls of sound or noise. This was achieved by two saxophones, trombone, piano, bass and drums. One of the saxophone players did not play much actual melodic content during the one hour performance, but instead contributed to the rather frenzied climaxes with a lot of high pitched squeaking sounds. The piano player beat all, as he would start a solo with some attempt at slow jazz like melody, but would quickly progress to rushing up and down the keyboard like a madman. Then he would stand up and do the same by putting all his weight into his hands, but his leg and bright red shoe would rise, and it looked like he was going to get his leg over the piano. Afterwards they put on a Jazz singer, Roy Cameron, who is a professor in the Essen Musikhochschule. This turned out to have rather a lot of tedious moments and the final act was not much of an improvement. Gunter Hampel, a very skinny guy, who plays vibes, flute and bass clarinet. He performed with a lot of young musicians, who had to put up with his long vibe solos. These included two break dancers, who performed for the audience on the stage. 

Sunday was perhaps not such a mixture and there was a lot more consistency.


The highlight was Richie Beirach, who sat down and played solo piano, starting with an excellent composition by Bill Evans and Miles Davis. He went on to relate an experience of playing with Dizzy Gillespie at short notice, and he then played the two Gillespie songs that he had performed in that very gig. The direct link with the great Jazz tradition is evident in his style and his own very lyrical compositions, one of which, he said he had never performed live before. Beirach, who is teaching at the moment in Leipzig Musikhochschule, joked about the fact he was playing in a factory and not a concert hall. A real Essen solution to the problem of empty industrial sites is to use these places for concerts. He also made a joke about those of us sitting in the very front saying: "I get it, you are sitting on the floor - I thought you were children down there, you are so short looking." He finished the gig with two Bill Evans numbers and a song from John Coltraine's experimental album "transitions".  I think that it was worth coming to the entire festival to hear Beirach. Most of the audience were so impressed that they left, leaving the last band to play to a half empty hall. Beirach, who joked about Essen meaning "food," obviously ran off to try out the local cuisine.