Sommergarten 2010

Summer is here again and so are the KAH rooftop ‘Sommergarten’ Concerts.  Well okay, Summer isn’t quite here, and the rooftop was too windy, but there was a concert beside the KAH – Thomas Gerdiken delivered New Orleans jazz not just by the music – he also brought with him a very talented young trumpet player from the City’s University.

In 2008, to celebrate the 80th Birthday of Louis Armstrong, Thomas Gerdiken travelled to New Orleans.  He returned, not just with souvenirs and memories but also with contacts in the Jazz world and a desire to help the City in the wake of 2005’s Katrina hurricane.

These connections led to a very special guest on Sunday:  Terry Steve Gibson Junior is just 18, but he recently won a ‘SEEKING SATCH’ Event by the French Quarter Festival.  There was stiff competition to follow in the giant footsteps of Louis Armstrong but Gibson won through, and rightfully so given his performance at the KAH.

Robin Ligon-Williams was also on hand to tell us a little about the University of New Orleans Jazz programme who arranged the Competition where she is the Director.

And of course there was plenty of New Orleans Jazz from Gerdiken and his very able Fats Domino Tribute Band, rounded off finally by a mini conga of musicians blasting out ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.  Good news too is that you can sleep in an hour more this year – the Rooftop shows now start at 11pm.

It’s looking good for another great Sommergarten Season.  Now all we need is good weather.  I hope God is a Jazz fan.

SOMMERGARTEN SEASON 2010

13 June      The Queen Kings (Queen Tribute)

27 June      Seis del Son (Salsa)

11 July        Le Clou  (Cajun)

25 July       Engelbert Wrobel’s Swing Society (Jazz)

08 August  Motownhead (Soul)

22 August  Stable Roof Jazz Band (Jazz)

All 11am to 2pm.

KAH Roof, Museumsmile or nearby depending on the weather

Jazz Connection

Free Jazz is all around in Bonn, Or so it seems these days. The Rheinaue Season is well underway and the Sommergarten Sunday shows in Museumsplatz are also a regular (fortnightly) attraction. In the end what to see or not to see depends very much on the weather. Friday threatened rain so I headed to Sundays show next to the KAH in Museumsplatz.  You’ve guessed it… the rain arrived on Sunday.

The musicians from Jazz Connection though were so nimble on their feet they could easily have dodged between the raindrops.

Jazz on the Roof wasn’t, as it happens  threats of a downpour meant the show was moved and the General Anzeiger ‘tent’ pitched up in front of the rather grander ‘tent’ that is the Museumsplatz Stage. Actually this turned out to be a good thing because Jazz Connection like to ‘roam around’ during their sets. During any given number a sax player or trombonist is likely to ‘take off’ for a walk round the audience, instrument in hand.

For you non-Jazz buffs out there a bit of detail and classification: Jazz Connection hail from Breda in Holland and play under the ’sub-section’ of Jump Jive. It’s a title I’m familiar with through an excellent Joe Jackson record from way back that centred around the Music of  Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan who along with Ellington and Basie was one of the prime movers of Jazz and Swing in the 1940’s.  Jordan has been dubbed the King of Rythm & Blues which is maybe why I like his Jump Jazz style so much and why I also enjoy the music of Jazz Connection.

It’s an energetic style which is a refreshing alternative to the aging face of jazz that tends to dominate the beer gardens these days.  In keeping with this the band itself is comparatively young too – with only trumpet player Jurgen Feskens sporting a full head of white hair  (okay, trombonist  Peter VanSteen has no hair at all so we’re not talking teenagers here, but young at heart and fit they all are).

There is of course a large helping of Jordan classics – ‘Jack, You dead’, a surprisingly low key version of ‘Is you is, or Is You aint my Baby?’ and of course a storming version of the Jordan classic  ‘Caldonia’.  Quirky songs like ‘Nosey Joe’ and ‘Feets too Big’, classics like ‘When You’re Smiling’ and ‘Just a Gigolo’ and even a surprise offering of Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance’ – well maybe not such a surprise since they played a set of Morrison numbers here two years ago, the project ‘A Morisson Feeling’,  is now available as a (very enjoyable) CD in it’s own right.

The band could give The Jackson Five a run for their money where synchronised instrument playing/dancing is concerned.  One trombone going left as the trumpet goes right and hell would break loose.  It’s a dangerous life playing Jump Jazz for this band!  Everything though seems, as always when it’s done well, effortless and by the shows end I’m thinking this is one of the best acts I’ve seen at a Sommergarten show – and I’ve seen plenty.  If they come down your way don’t miss Jazz Connection.  And if you don’t start tapping at least one foot after the first song then – ‘Jack, you dead!’

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICTURES

Lee Lozowick – No simple bluesman

Performers so far have been
largely jazz oriented so the announcement in the listings of a ‘blues’ band on
the KAH roof on Sunday might have caught many of the audience unaware.  Add to this that Lee Lozowick considers
himself a "Western Baul," related to the itinerant tantric Baul
musicians from Bengal, India and is Founder and Spiritual Teacher of the Hohm
Community in Prescott Arizona and you know this won't be simple blues of the 12
bar variety.

Thumbing through the CD’s
on sale at the show I’m struck by the fact that Lee’s live album is recorded not in
Chicago, or even Cologne, but in India. 
I have Vague recollections that he was in a band called ‘Sri’ whom I’d seen
doing a show at the Airport in Cologne of all places a few years ago so I ask why
the connection with India?.  Lee replies
in his quiet manner that it’s somewhere he feels attached to.  I guess he thought it easier than trying to
explain the religious community in two minutes between sets.  Had he told me he’s a devotee of Sri Yogi
Ramsuratkumar I would have  needed a
notebook and spell checker.  Like the
very many other visitors I was there to enjoy good music on a sunny morning so
lets not talk religion – lets talk blues.

 

 

Lee Lozowick – tells it like he feels it

The band is large: three
backing singers, a keyboard, drummer, violin, guitar, harmonica even.  The band is also very good and handle a mixed
bag of music with ease.  Covers from people
as diverse as Billy Joel, Tom Waits and Ray Charles but surprisingly it’s the
self-penned songs that make the most impression and at times there is some preaching between the
lines, as in “Piece of Ass” with it’s stance on the emptiness of  possession:

“Just looking is better to
me…love doesn’t always need to possess the object of it’s affection” sounds
like something the Dalai Lama might have said if he had his own rock band.

 

Charismatic frontman Lee in action

 

 Lozowick certainly has a
charismatic presence and his deep, growly, slightly garbled lyrical delivery
seems designed to make people listen more closely.  Reminiscent of  Bob Dylan? 
There is also something of the doomed expression of a good Leonard Cohen
song in there too (not surprisingly Cohen songs are in Lozowick’s reportoire
though not played today).   On the minus side, There seems to be a large number of non-musical looking young people walking round holding up CD's for sale and I wonder if the audience gets a vibe of something here that is not all about the music?  But then again, as the great poet Dylan (Bob) would suggest:  "Maybe I'm too sensitive, or else I'm getting soft"

 

some of the band doing their thing 

 

Overall it has to be said that the music was a
change from ‘all that jazz’ (sorry Sean and co!) although there were quite a few squirming
expressions amongst the grey haired members of the audience during the guitar
solos.  I liked it enough to get a copy
of the solo project CD anyway and asked Lee to sign my copy.  He immediately opened it up and signed by the
lyrics of the song “Diamonds”.  One
particular song had decided me on buying the CD – no prizes for guessing which
one.  

Blues Notes

(Toledo Free Press, November 9, 2005)

When I was in first grade, the connection was made between smoking and lung cancer. A doctor from a local hospital came to our classroom with a cage of rats and injected them with nicotine. After they died, he cut them up to show us their blackened innards.

Around that same time I was introduced to music. Back in the 60s schools had budgets for arts education, and my class was taken to a performance of Peter and the Wolf. Immediately I was hooked, and not just on that, but also on the jazz piano of the supper club where my uncle worked, and the rock that echoed from the next-door-neighbor’s basement.

By my sixth year of life then, two facts were clear: I hated tobacco and I loved music. Forty years later I feel the same way.

Now if you’re listening to a symphony in a gilded hall, or a concert in a recital studio, it’s likely you’re some distance from Marlboro Country. But when you seek out the jazz or “new” scene, things get dicey. New music mostly starts in bars and clubs, and in Toledo, that mean fogs of blue.
 
Not long ago I lived in Germany where smoking is a given, not just in drinking and dancing places, but also in kitchens, schools, offices, and even on certain modes of public transportation. The music in Europe is great, but the air is toxic.
 
Shortly before I returned, Toledo passed a progressive no-smoking ordinance, similar to that in place throughout New York, America’s arts capital. But because our ordinance was applicable only in city establishments, smokers fled to the ‘burbs. Restaurant and bar owners complained about business losses and within months, Toledo’s no-smoking ordinance wafted on- and upward
 
Believe me, I understand the proprietors’ concerns. Tobacco is legal in America, so gerrymandering districts in which cigs can be lit is duplicitous. New York has been successful because its restrictions apply state-wide. What’s law in Manhattan is law on Long Island is law in Buffalo. Until Ohio does something similar—there’s a rumor such an initiative might be on the 2006 ballot—business guys have a legitimate beef.
 
But so do I. If you’ve been reading me very long, you know I’m an advocate for the local arts scene. But there’s a huge part of it I don’t participate in because I can’t enjoy the acts while my eyes and throat are burning.
 
There’s one specific place in town that bring in terrific bands and is welcoming to guests of all ages.  I’d like to frequent it more, but I can’t take the smell. In theory, the performance area, away from the bar, is off limits for smoking–signs say so–but the reality is different. The last time I was there a waitperson was asked to relocate smokers nearer the beer taps, but she said she couldn’t. Later when I asked the proprietor what his policy was he said, (I’m paraphrasing) “No smoking, but:” “but” being if it means the loss of a customer, “butt” wins. “It’s mostly kids,” he said confidentially of those who light up.
 
Again, I understand his philosophy, but the health and arts advocacy parts of me are warring about it. To get any kind of arts scene going, a community needs the support of its younger members, but it’s mostly younger people who smoke.
 
Reconciliation of this seems impossible unless a state–or better yet, nationwide–smoking ban is passed. But as this country was founded on tobacco (as well as alcohol and slavery, but that’s another column), that’s gonna be a while.
 
So for the most part I’ll have to contain my listening-to to more classical (and expensive) venues. That’s too bad, because as much as I like Prokofiev, I also like JT and The Clouds. Music may soothe the savage beast, but cancer kills.