Let's talk about jazz... and stories
"Sometimes reality is too complex," Jean-Luc Godard once said. What helps then, the French director continued, are stories: Because only stories give reality a form. Stories, and this brings us full circle, will certainly be aplenty at Jazz Leipzig in September.
There is, for example, the one about the Jazzwerkstatt Peitz: once a laboratory of subversion in GDR times, it was banned by the state authorities in 1982. The festival around legendary founder Ulli Blobel has now been back on the scene for almost 20 years - the most recent edition only took place in August. In all these years, materials, documents, artifacts and, of course, stories have accumulated en masse. And so the jazz city of Leipzig can count itself lucky that the Jazzwerkstatt archive recently became the property of the German National Library. To mark the occasion, there will be a top-class festival at the DNB Leipzig in September entitled "Störenfriede: Jazz, Protest + Revolution" - featuring jazz legends such as Conny Bauer, Joe Sachse and Myra Melford.
And while we're on the subject of jazz legends: Leipzig-born Jutta Hipp, who released three albums on the legendary Blue Note label in New York in the 1950s before turning her back on the stage and falling into oblivion, remains unforgotten. Musicologist Ilona Haberkamp, who two years ago published a highly readable biography of the gifted jazz pianist entitled "Plötzlich Hip(p)" (Suddenly Hip(p)), has played a large part in Hipp's story gaining increased attention again in recent years. On September 6, Haberkamp will read from her work, accompanied by Stephan König on the piano.
Meanwhile, we at the Jazzclub are - you probably already guessed it - not completely idle at the moment, on the contrary: the 48th Leipziger Jazztage are just around the corner! But before the opening concert by Michael Wollny, Joachim Kühn and Cécile McLorin Salvant at the Leipzig Opera on October 19, there are still many emails, phone calls, meetings, negotiations and arrangements to be made and completed - which is often as unglamorous as it sounds. All the more reason for us to look forward to the stories that will emerge from the many concerts of the Jazz Days themselves in October.
"Tell me...!" will be the motto of this year's edition. If you want to be sure of being able to tell stories at the end, you can now secure strictly limited early bird tickets for the festival or a ticket for the opening concert. Regular advance sales will then start on September 17.
See you soon,
Luca
Jazz calendar editorial team
