Trichome Trio. In der Reihe: Django Reinhardt und der französische Jazz, 1940-1960.

In the organizer's words:

Encore!!!!
DJANGO REINHARDT AND FRENCH JAZZ, 1940-1960

sponsored by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin

FREE ADMISSION

LEGRAND, GORAGUER, SOLAL, URTREGER
TRICHROME TRIO
Nesin Howannesijan - bass
Benedikt Jahnel - piano
Diego Pinera - drums

The Trichrome Trio led by Nesin Howannesijan (bass) with Benedikt Jahnel on piano and Diego Pinera on drums is characterized by rhythmically and melodically exceptionally complex structures. Three great musicians interweave their own compositions on this evening with the compositions of some French jazz pianists* who were active between 1940 and 1960. These include Martial Solal, André Persiani, Raymond Fol, Eddie Barclay, Claude Bolling, Michel Legrand, Bernard Pfeiffer, Alain Goraguer, René Urtreger and - last but not least - a woman! Mimi Perrin.
Martial Solal is known, among other things, for his 1960 film score for "À bout de souffle" by Jean -Luc Godard, and has been an integral part of the Paris jazz scene and clubs in Saint-Germain - des -Près since the late 1940s, accompanying American musicians such as Don Byas, Stan Getz, Kenny Clarke and Chet Baker. With his own trio, which besides him consisted of Daniel Humair (drums) and Guy Pedersen (bass), he recorded his first own CD in 1960. Incidentally, Martial Solal is still active as a pianist today and recently recorded an award-winning album.
His colleague Michel Legrand began composing music for the film "Les Amants du Tage" (1954), based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, as early as 1954. This was followed by film music for the films of Agnes Warda (Cléo - de 5 à 7, 1962), and Jean-Luc Godard (Vivre sa vie, 1962). He became successful with 1964's Les Parapluis de Cherbourg, which featured Catherine Deneuve. Legrand worked not only with Django Reinhardt, but also with Donald Byrd, John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie. Incidentally, he studied with Nadia Boulanger, as did Quincy Jones - in the late 1950s. One of his most beautiful albums includes reinterpretations of "April in Paris" and "Sous les ponts de Paris".
Bernardt Pfeiffer played with Django Reinhardt, Hubert Rostaing and in the 1950s with bassist Jean-Louis Viale, his band "Bernard Pfeiffer and his St. Germain des Pres Orchestra" was formed in cooperation with Roger Guérin (trumpet) and Bobby Jaspar (sax). He was also invited by André Hodeir to be a pianist in his "Le Jazz Groupe de Paris".
René Urtreger, who now lives in Paris, was already playing with Lester Young in the Paris clubs in the 1950s and was also on stage with Chet Baker. He participated in the film "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" and met Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins. In 1960 he participated in the jazz festival in Antibes organized by Guy Lafitte.
Claude Bolling likewise played in the Saint Germain clubs as early as the 1950s, performing with Lionel Hampton and Roy Eldridge, but increasingly devoted himself to film music and also composed classical music.
Alain Goraguer worked with Boris Vian, setting his poems to music, as well as the songs of jazz guitarist and singer Henri Salvador, and Serge Gainsbourg. He was introduced to the jazz scene by the singer Simone Alma, about whom, unfortunately, little can be found. She introduced him to Boris Vian. He also composed the score for the film "L'eau à la bouche" by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, 1960, with Serge Gainsbourg. Incidentally, Serge Gainsbourg also worked as a jazz pianist and accompanied the singer Michéle Arnaud, who introduced him to the jazz clubs of the city, where he met Alain Goraguer.
André Persiani played with Joseph Reinhardt in 1946 and in the 1950s with Don Byas, Sidney Bechet, Lionel Hampton and Kenny Clarke, among others. He accompanied Django Reinhardt during one of his last recordings and arranged for Henri Salvador. Already in the mid-1950s he was drawn to the USA.
Eddie Barclay's real name was Edouard Ruault, but he adopted an American-sounding pseudonym in the 1940s. He played with Django Reinhardt, founded several record labels and later made a name for himself as a producer of several chanson singers.
Raymond Fol is one of the older of his generation, who after World War II played regularly in the clubs of Saint-Germain with his brother Hubert Fol (sax) and Django Reinhardt. These joint sessions were already leaning towards bebop, which the Fol brothers adapted.
The name of Mimi Perrin appears here as the only pianist, and also on a recording: "Dancing Party à Saint Germain des Prés" from 1958, on which she not only plays the piano, but also sings. She later made a name for herself as a singer. It must have been one of the few, if not the only, instrumentalist of the time. Apart, of course, from Mary Lou Williams, who came from the USA, lived longer in Paris and recorded, among other things, her own compositions on an album with Don Byas in 1954.
A selection of compositions from this period will be performed by the Trichrome Trio, among them will be mainly transcriptions by Zoran Terzic. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France does have compositions by some of these pianists in its collection, but for legal reasons they were not available. They have probably been lying there in the archives for decades - it is a hitherto undiscovered treasure. So on September 22, let's revel in the sounds of an extraordinary piano trio that virtuously oscillates between polyrhythms, neo-tonality and melodic richness.

TO THE SERIES:

Based on the current dynamics and developments of the jazz scene in Berlin, which is incredibly diverse and exciting, but from which relatively few musicians* achieve continuous commercial success and international fame, a few questions can be derived about the jazz scene in other countries in the present, but also in the past. So let's take a closer look at France in the 1950s. There, Django Reinhardt was an emblematic figure representing French jazz - he died exactly 70 years ago, in May 1953. In Paris, alongside Django Reinhardt, a number of French jazz musicians* performed who, although hardly known today, played elementary roles in the development of the jazz scene in Paris during those years. Among them are: Aimée Barelli (trumpet), André Ekyan (clarinet), Hubert Rostaing (clarinet), André Hodeir (violin), Bernard Pfeiffer (piano), Jack Diéval (piano), Hubert Fol (saxophone), Raymond Fol (piano), Martial Solal (piano), Bobby Jaspar (sax), René Urtreger (piano), Boris Vian (trumpet), Pierre Michelot (bass), Fats Sadi (vibraphone), René Thomas (guitar), Alix Combelle (sax), Guy Lafitte (sax), Roger Guérin (trumpet), Bernard Pfeiffer (piano), Alain Goraguer (piano), Eddie Barclay (piano), Michel Legrand (piano) and Barney Wilen (sax). Except for the pianist Mimi Perrin, who can be heard as a pianist and singer on a single record entitled "Dancing party à Saint-Germain-des-Prés", quite a few singers are known, but no instrumentalist. Blossom Dearie is still one of the better known jazz singers of the time in Paris - she too was a pianist like Mimi Perrin, but came from the USA and was married to saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. She went to Paris in 1952 and founded the band "Blue Stars", which became the "Swingle Singers".

The concert series on Django Reinhardt is not only a tribute to all the French musicians* who contributed decisively to the blossoming of the jazz scene in Paris at that time, but also pays tribute to the highly creative and impressive members of the current Berlin jazz scene. Without them, it would be quiet. Unlike their mid-20th century French counterparts, we can experience them live! In 9 concerts between June and September 2023, the diverse microcosm of the Parisian jazz scene between 1940 and 1960 will be reflected through concerts of various current Berlin jazz bands, which definitely implement diverse approaches and musical strategies. Each band plays a predominant part of pieces by French composers from this period. Thus the concerts between June and September 2023 in Berlin offer on the one hand an insight into the diversity of current Berlin jazz, but also bring us closer to the vibrant Parisian jazz scene of the years between 1940 and 1960, as if in a prism.

Django Reinhardt and French Jazz, 1940-1960

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli met one evening in 1934 at the Hotel Claridge, a posh hotel at 74 Avenue de la Champs-Élysées, where the bands played the dance tea that stretched from the afternoon into the late night. Both started jamming in a back room and met there regularly. Very soon, one of the co-founders of the Hot Club de France, a fan club that had developed from a student circle of jazz fans in the late 1920s, became aware of the backroom jam sessions. He suddenly had the idea of bringing both musicians together in a band and making them the club's figurehead. Pierre Nourry heard the two first and called Charles Delaunay to join. With these musicians, Nourry and Delaunay founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, which, in contrast to American jazz, which was mainly characterized by wind players and pianists, consisted exclusively of stringed instruments. The Quintette du Hot Club de France thus marked an independent development of French jazz and, more generally, of French light music since the mid-19th century.
Around 1850, Parisians danced to the "musette", a kind of bagpipe. The Italians introduced the accordion around 1900. The bagpipe and the accordion now played together and the "Bals Musettes" developed. Django Reinhardt's music was initially an amalgam of these "musettes" and the traditional music of the Roma and Sinti, gradually incorporating jazz elements. Since he could not read music, he always improvised, which automatically gave him access to this essential component of jazz.
The heyday of the "musette" as well as its chansons and "jazz manouche", which Django Reinhardt had played a decisive role in shaping, coincided with the period of the Front Populaire between 1934 and 1938 and became the "soundtrack" of that time. Before the Front Populaire came to power under President Leon Blum in 1936, Social Democrats and Communists joined forces in 1934. Beginning in 1936, they introduced new labor rights, vacations, the creation of interest groups and unions, including in the cultural sphere, and a push for democracy in French society. At the same time as the Front Populaire, fascist dictatorships were in power in Germany and Italy. Because of the achievements of workers and employees, who among other things used strikes as a means, the period of the Front Populaire was generally considered a positive, joyful time. The founding of the Quintette du Hot Club de France coincided with the year of the merger between the two political forces in France, and the year 1934 therefore heralded not only a new political era, but also a new chapter in French jazz. This political context may also be a key to the importance of jazz in France, because the period of the Front Populaire, of democracy and participation of formerly excluded social groups, is still considered a positively "mythical" period in France - which at the same time gave rise to its own, genuinely "French" jazz.
Even under the German occupation from 1940, jazz did not fall silent. While almost all American musicians and artists who had been in Paris until then, among them Josephine Baker, Benny Carter or Coleman Hawkins, left for the USA, the market was free for the French jazz bands, which had to compete with their American colleagues before 1940. Although the Nazis labeled jazz "degenerate," persecuted Roma and Sinti, and deported them to concentration camps, they danced to this music and couldn't get enough of it. Django Reinhardt refused to accept an invitation from Goebbels to come to Berlin and instead fled towards Switzerland. Thousands of Roma and Sinti were killed in concentration camps during World War II - Django Reinhardt miraculously survived . And very well at that. From 1940, the youth in Paris discovered jazz as a music of resistance, they formed the group of "Zazous", but very soon fell into disfavor and were persecuted and ostracized by the Nazis. Despite all this, from 1940 the membership of the Hot Club de France grew from a few hundred to more than 5,000, and the founders Charles Delaunay, Hugues Panassié and Pierre Nourry also survived the war unscathed, although they were exposed to permanent danger. Charles Delaunay worked for the British secret service and was interrogated for hours by the Nazis. He had also developed a strategy to evade Nazi censorship, as setlists had to be approved by the Nazi propaganda headquarters in Paris before concerts. All American jazz standards were given French translations. Thus, "Sweet Georgia Brown" became "Douce Georgette." The jazz enthusiasm in Paris, which emerged first with the Front Populaire and then especially during the German occupation, making jazz first the music of freedom and social justice and later, from 1940, an expression of resistance, carried French society into the 1960s, and Paris renewed and solidified its reputation as the European jazz capital. Django Reinhardt, Sinti, illiterate, marginalized because of his origins, became in the process the emblematic figure of jazz in France.
However, the jazz scene in Paris was continuously on the move. In the 1930s, the jazz of the Quintette du Hot Club de France emerged, drawing its inspiration from the " Bals Musette", the music of the Sinti and Roma, and early swing. American musicians were present in Paris since the 1920s - Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Sidney Bechet enriched the cultural life of the city. During the war and the German occupation, French bands played the jazz of the Quintette, and after 1945, more American musicians came to Paris, bringing bebop with them and thus inspiring French jazz musicians. In 1954, the French jazz violinist, composer and critic André Hodeir, who witnessed the different styles and developments of jazz and also implemented them in his art, co-founded the group of "Musique Concrète", together with Pierre Boulez and Pierre Schaeffer. André Hodeir thus became a protagonist of French jazz, creating the connection of the "Jazz Manouche" of the 1930s to the neo-tonality and electro-acoustic music of the "Musique Concrète". Originally he had studied composition with Olivier Messiaen. As a critic, he wrote for a number of journals and was editor-in-chief of "Jazz Hot" in the late 1940s. He also published several books in the 1950s and was also published in the United States. He helped American jazz after 1945 and its representatives Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious to fame in Paris and Europe. With the help of his writings, he helped them become legends. The period of French jazz between 1940 and 1960 therefore also stands for a very diverse jazz, which continuously developed and accompanied the democratic awakening in the 1930s and after the Second World War. In this it resembles the Berlin jazz scene of today, and therein lies its fascination and appeal.

Wednesday, June 7, 2023, 8 p.m., Brotfabrik
AMERICANS IN PARIS
Allan Praskin - sax
Joel Holmes - piano
Joe Hertenstein - drums
Isabel Roessler- bass

Saturday, June 10, 2023, 8 p.m., Elias Cupola Hall
DJANGO'S VIBRAPHONES: HAMPTON, SADI
Metamadera
Lucas Dorado - vibraphone
Aly Keita - marimba
Minino Garay - percussion

Friday, June 23, 2023, 8 p.m., Room Extension Hall
DJANGO'S VIOLINS: GRAPPELLI, HODEIR
Subsystem featuring Fabiana Striffler
Almut Schlichting- b.sax
Sven Hinse - bass
Fabiana Striffler - violin

Wednesday, July 5, 2023, 8 p.m., Brotfabrik
CHANSON+JAZZ WITH ELKE BRAUWEILER
Elke Brauweiler - vocals
Thibault Falk - piano
Rodolfo Paccapelo - bass
Greg Smith - drums

Introduction: Regina Câmara

Saturday, July 8, 2023, 8 p.m., Elias Kuppelsaal
DJANGO PUR
Radio Django
Daniel Weltlinger - violin
Janko Lauenberger - guitar
Giovanni Steinbach - guitar
Santino Bamberger - guitar
Max Hartmann - bass

Friday, September 1, 2023, 8 pm, Institut Français
POTSA LOTSA PLAYS ANDRÉ HODEIR
Silke Eberhard - sax
Johannes Fink - cello
Patrick Braun - sax
Jürgen Kupke - clarinet
Taiko Saito - vibraphone
Kay Lübke - drums
Gerhard Gschlössl - trombone
Igor Spallati - bass
Nikolaus Neuser - trumpet
Nik Leistle - b.sax

Friday, September 8, 2023, 8 p.m., Kühlspot Social Club
DJANGO FREE
Schlapitzki
Marc Schmolling - piano
Felix Wahnschaffe - sax
Moritz Baumgärtner- drums
Matthias Pichler - bass

Introduction: Wolf Kampmann

Friday, September 22, 2023, 8 p.m., Kühlspot Social Club
LEGRAND, SOLAL, GORAGUER, URTREGER
Trichome Trio
Benedikt Jahnel - piano
Nesin Howannesijan- bass
Diego Piñera - drums

Saturday, September 23, 2023, 8 p.m., Room Extension Hall
GUITARS AND DJANGO
Tina Jäckel Trio
Tina Jäckel - guitar
Derek Scherzer - drums
Lars Gühlcke- bass

Introduction: Regina Câmara

THE SERIES IS COMPLETED WITH AN ONLINE READER WITH TEXTS BY WOLF KAMPMANN (JIB, Berlin), TOM PERCHARD (Goldmiths University, London), PIERRE FARGETON (Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Étienne), a.o.

Concept; organization and texts: Jazz am Helmholtzplatz e.V.:
Regina Câmara
flyer: Witte Wartena: wittewartena.nl
Graphics: Holger Stück
Percussion: Greg Smith
Intern: Emilia Sjölund
Coordination rehearsals: Delphi Breger
Score research: Regina Câmara
Transcriptions: Zoran Terziç
Presentations: Wolf Kampmann, Regina Câmara

Price information:

Admission free