Wolf Kampann, Wolfram Knauer and other panelists in conversation about the today and yesterday of jazz in Germany.

"During the Jazz Days, we felt somehow exterritorial, like citizens of the world in a world empire of creative music," says Heinz-Jürgen Lindner, former chairman of the Freundeskreis Jazz and co-initiator of the Leipzig Jazz Days, in one of his contributions to the anniversary volume "Flamingos und andere Paradiesvögel" (Flamingos and Other Birds of Paradise) on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Leipzig Jazz Days. The Dutch saxophonist Willem Breuker even once described the GDR as "the promised land of free improvisation", and if you just keep pricking up your ears and listening to the stories of those who were in part already there when the Freundeskreis Jazz (today known as Jazzclub Leipzig) was launched, you might think that despite all the restrictions, jazz in the GDR was blazing brightly with hope. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution, we feel compelled to take a look back - at the all-German history of jazz. This includes any mystifications that may have taken hold on both sides. However, it should not remain with a mere summary, even more so in the year of the music of the future. Rather, it can be assumed that our currently confirmed panel guests (more to follow), Wolf Kampmann and Wolfram Knauer, will comprehensively illuminate the present and past of jazz in Germany. Wolf Kampmann, music journalist and, among other things, lecturer in pop history and journalism at the hdpk Berlin, considers the subversive jazz underground in the GDR to be a legend, but in no way wishes to deny GDR jazz its uniqueness, merely pointing out that the state also had a calculation in allowing free jazz to be considered a "part of the socialist-realist self-image of GDR cultural policy." Wolfram Knauer, author and director of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, has dealt intensively with the multifaceted history of jazz in Germany - from the persecution of this music in the "Third Reich" to the "emancipation" of a German jazz in the 1950s and 1960s, from the developments in the GDR to the most recent projects of German jazz musicians. At the end of September, Reclam published his book "Play yourself, man! - The History of Jazz in Germany" was published by Reclam at the end of September. A controversial, insightful conversation is to be expected.
Free admission for all with tickets for the concerts at the Schauspielhaus afterwards.