"All stops - the organ in jazz".
among others with Barbara Dennerlein, Goldings/Bernstein/Stewart, Duo Krokenberger/Oehl 

One of the main protagonists of this year's MusikZeit presents itself in the guise of an old-fashioned living room sideboard, standing ponderously on turned legs. The Hammond organ, a daughter of the industrial age in its own right, but anything but homely in appearance, looks back on a short past. It first sounded in a New York church in April 1935. From there, Laurens Hammond's invention spread to countless small communities in the USA. Once there, it temporarily shoved the church organ cheekily from its ancestral throne. In 2020, there will be no more wrangling! "All stops - the organ in jazz" celebrates both "sovereignties"!

Playing on a pipe organ is like being able to make all the instruments of an orchestra sound at the same time, says organist Arno Krokenberger, and he goes into raptures about the possibilities of his instrument. In the past, a bellows pedal, the so-called "Kalkant," had to provide the wind with which the stops could be made to sound in the first place. Today, an electric motor takes over this task. Each pipe organ is unique in its own way, so it is essential to get to know it before the concert. Now probably everyone has already heard the sometimes awe-inspiring surge, the shattering, Old Testament-like breath of a pipe organ and may frown in bewilderment. Jazz on the oldest of all keyboard instruments? Is that even possible? And how! On the opening evening, Barbara Dennerlein plays the Jehmlich organ in the Reformed Church and the Hammond model B3, which has become legendary in the meantime. Fragile flute, cementing massive walls of sound or simply squeaking pointedly - whether Hammond or pipe organ - almost no tone is immune from sounding in this MusikZeit spring.