Museumsplatz Concert Season 2011

Today saw a press conference take place at the Kunsthalle to introduce the coming Concert season at Bonns Museumsplatz.

No Elton John, or Liza Minnelli this year, but whoever thought that the financial restraints after those heady (and expensive) years gone by would mean a boring season of has beens and never will be’s has been proved decidedly wrong.  There are some ‘Big Hitters’ still set to play.

Martin Nötzel from ‘Kult Event’ promised a very varied calendar this year:  Buena Vista, Brazilian with Sergio Mendez, traditional German with Bläck Fööss, Italian Rock with Gianna Nannini, Folk with Hannes Wader, Jazz with Til Brönner, for the Irish there’s the marvelous ‘Pogues’ .  You want a musical? how about the British production of ‘Hair’?  or comedy? there’s TV comic personality  Kaya Yanar.  Oh, and if you want Blues and Rock you are definitely living in the right Bundesstadt this year: BB King with Ana Popovic, Joe Bonamassa with ‘Black Country Communion’ and, on 10 July  Greg Allmann with  Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi (what a week for Blues Lovers that promises to be!

My recommendations are certainly The Pogues with the irrepressible Shane Mcgowan – man of many words and few teeth.  ‘Rum, Sodomy & the Lash’ is still an all time favourite disc of mine.  Gregg Allman has made an excellent new CD ‘Low Country Blues’ and with Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi alongside has two of America’s most influential and popular modern Blues stars.

Of course there would be no modern Blues Stars without the original Blues Stars and they don’t come any better than Mr BB King.  Now well into his eighties; BB won’t be doing a two hour set but a dozen songs from the King are worth a hundred from just about any other musician in the genre.  Not that anyone will have grounds to complain about the music on that evening as Promoter E.L. Hartz promised that unlike BB’s last appearance here there would be only one special guest so we can look forward to a full set from Ana Popovic  and her great band (of whom I need say no more – you all know I’m a fan!).

A ‘Geheimtipp’ for the Season from Martin Nötzel is French Jazz/Pop singerIsabelle Geoffrey.  The lady better known as Zaz, has had an album at nr 1 in France for 9 weeks and her career is gaining momentum by the day.  The  “Piaf of the Blues” says Rolling Stone Magazine.

Yes, I can safely say that from July to September Summer will most definitely be here in Bonn!

Concerts at 5 April 2011 (more are promised!)

17.06. UNHEILIG
18.06. BLÄCK FÖÖSS
19.06. PASIÓN DE BUENA VISTA
07.07. THE POGUES
08.07. SCALA & KOLACNY BROTHERS
09.07. TIL BRÖNNER
10.07. GREGG ALLMAN
11.07. B.B.KING
14.07. BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION
19.07. BONNER WIRTSCHAFTSGESPRÄCHE
20.07. SÉRGIO MENDES
23.07. ART OF CYCLING
26.07. HAIR
27.07. GIANNA NANNINI
30.07. HANNES WADER & KONSTANTIN WECKER
06.08. KAYA YANAR
19.08. ZAZ
20.08. ICH & ICH
26.08. TEXAS
27.08. ELEMENT OF CRIME
29.08.-07.09. LANGE FILMNÄCHTE
02.09. DIETER THOMAS KUHN & BAND
09.09. JULI & BOSSE

FULL CONCERT DETAILS

Popularity: 18% [?]

3 J’s – 3 Different Blues

The three J’s – maybe that should be the three G’s as three different generations of Rock Blues guitarists took the Museumsplatz stage by storm on Monday.  Jimmy Bowskill, Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck.   We sent two J’s to cover the event.  John Harrison provides the words and John Hurd the pictures at this one off musical event with a past master, a current icon and a tip for future fame all under one hot Bonn Tent.

Sometimes less words = more understanding:

Proof of that is Jimmy Bowskill.  Still only 19 and Canadian, but playing with a passion that most people will either never ever know, or have long since lost! If the blues have a future it is intrinsically here, raw, emotional and practiced with both skilful feeling and innovational talent.

Jimmy’s been straight back to the source and listened to Robert Johnson and Son House, he’s worked his way through the old Delta blues players as a young boy and expresses his contemporary feelings in a modern way, but you can still hear the old masters’ voices coming through when he plays.

Mid-set he swaps his Gibson Les Paul for a twin necked Gibson and lets rip on the 12 string arm, because it’s a fun thing to do. Jimmy enjoys playing and this comes through in his music.

His instrumental rendering of Summertime on a Fender Telecaster, audaciously tuning the guitar to a minor key and then playing bottleneck slide was both visually and audibly mind boggling, he didn’t tune it just two frets down to Dm, he tuned it 4 frets down to Cm, Jimmy likes a fatter sound and he certainly gets it with his instrumental ‘Tour de Force’ that prepared us mentally for Jeff Beck later in the evening.

“Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.”

-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Twain might have been at tonight’s set by Joe Bonamassa when he wrote that.  Bonamassa is good.  Very, very good in fact.  But he comes across tonight as possessing more quantity than quality, with uncountable notes that seemed tapped out like morse code on a railway station with a telegrapher one hundred years ago.  He changes guitars like he has to, but he doesn’t really.

Joe is certainly a great polished professional showman, with the shades to match, but I missed a feeling, a raw simple gutsy feeling, that comes sometimes through the axe of a great player when everything falls magically into place and the soulful sounds totally enchant the listener.

Sometimes less words = more understanding(reprise):

Jeff Beck of course doesn’t sing a lot, but then he doesn’t have to.  He lets his snow white Stratocaster cry, then he lets it gently weep, and then he lets it sing for him.  It sings like a nightingale.

He doesn’t throw plectrums into the audience either.  Why? Because a hard cheap piece of far eastern manufactured plastic would reduce his feeling.  His strings are gently stroked by the skin of his thumb and his naked finger tips. This gives him a much a warmer sound than most of his peers and this and his almost unique use of the tremolo arm on his guitar contributes to the lead guitar sound which is Jeff Beck. I think Hank Marvin of the Shadows was the last guitarist I saw actively using the tremolo.

His music is driven by passion rather than aggression, fire rather than anger, love rather than desire.

Sheer boots and braces music – which oddly enough is how he is dressed tonight:  White calf length boots and, due to the heat shirtless under the white waistcoat, grey braces hanging like pendants -almost as if he’s only half out of bed, and, totally nonplussed before dispatching the young whippersnappers, pretentiously nipping at his heels, who walked the same boards earlier in the evening.

If ever there were an apprenticeship for blues guitarists it would be the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck was lead guitarist as was Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton left because it was becoming too commercial and losing its blues roots.  What a schooling!

Jeff Beck doesn’t just play songs, he carefully selects them, and then wears them like a tailored suit.The fact that he doesn’t sing would be a drawback to lesser men. He has a knack more recently of picking songs where the melodies and the words are already in the heads of his audience. He merely plays a wonderful instrumental and triggers the latent words to spring into being in the listener’s mind.  Short and simple: A genius!

He simply plays, and the words are in our heads, found, addressed and mysteriously activated after just a few bars.

Early in the set he, in a rare moment of explanation, said that the next piece “Corpus Christi “ was an old carol from 1660, the white haired man next to me aspired, “why doesn’t he play some blues?” Blues are supposed to make your eyes water! You can find the blues anywhere, even in the body of Christ.  Jeff really did square the circle as the tears welled in my eyes.

Then such a wonderful bass solo with harmonics and goose pimples.  “People get ready” is a great gospel song from Curtis Mayfield and is somehow even more heart rendering, when the only words are self supplied.

In “Rolling and tumbling” some wonderful vocals from Princes former bass player Rhonda Smith, as if almost an after thought to her superb bass playing.

Jeff Becks interpretation of “Somewhere over the rainbow” led us like the Pied Piper down the yellow brick road.  And later “Day in the life” from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album came to life, despite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of vocals.

The mystique in Jeff Beck’s music is what he does not sing, his guitar simply knocks wordlessly on the mind’s door, and invites everybody in.

Review: John Harrison

Photos: c.John Hurd

John Harrison is MC and Regular Guest at the Bonn Folk Club



Popularity: 45% [?]

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!’

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Popularity: 28% [?]