Rooftop Royalty

The KAH Rooftop ‘ Sommergarten’ show was a bit different last Sunday.  For the first time Rock music was on show – and it attracted not only lots of visitors but also lots of glorious sunshine.   With a band called  The Queen Kings onstage you would expect lots of loyal subjects at their Garden Party – but where are the caviar sandwiches?

Status Quo cover bands have it easy:  Simple songs and simple arrangements that sound good in an arena or in a garden tent.  But Queen –  Masters of larger than life performances in mega arenas?  Try playing Bohemian Rhapsody in a tent, or on a roof even.  Queen Kings did.

Crazy?  Maybe not.  All it needs is ‘A kind of Magic’ and they have it.

I could spend a lot of time and computer screen arguing whether Queen Kings succeed in recreating Freddie & co onstage.  To Jan it simply doesn’t matter.  Jan you see is just a small boy.  He ran in front of the stage and danced.  Jan doesn’t know who Freddie Mercury is or was,  Jan doesn’t care.  All Jan knows is that ‘Crazy little thing called love’ makes him want to dance – and so he does.  That’s what really matters.

The original Band were so much larger than life that it’s easy to forget the strength of the music itself.   Mirko Bäumer and his Band put that right.  Here is ‘Rhapsody’ and ‘We are the Champions’ in plain shirts, jeans and sneakers.  Waiting with my Nikon to catch Bäumer striking  Freddie Mercury poses requires a lot of patience and when they do come they seem natural rather than put on.  I mean, how can anyone sing ‘We are the Champions’ without at least the slightest strutting walk and jutting jaw?  The words demand it.

Whilst there’s no doubting the quality of the Band – both Rolf Sander (bass) and Matthi Schmidt (drums) were in demand for Germany’s version of the Queen musical ‘We Will Rock You’ – It’s fair to say that to truly appreciate Queen Kings complete Show visually you need a spotlit stage and enclosed space to manage the sound perfectly.  Sunshine and small children are not quite what Freddie, Brian, Roger and John were about – maybe Jan though would disagree?!

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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