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Description
Born in Göttingen, Germany, Hampel has been living and playing Jazz around the world for more than seven decades, befriending and recording with likeminded masters such as Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Steve McCall, Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Archie Shepp, John McLaughlin, as well as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, or Thelonious Monk. “Jazz music exists in this world, so that things become clear”, he says, and demonstrates this in a diverse and dynamic set that playfully bounces from Bebop to Hip Hop via Orff-ian Folkestry, referencing the sonic concepts of Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” as much as Big Sean’s “Bounce Back”.
The concert starts from the back, literally, with Hampel and his “Berlin-New York Quartet” with Johannes Schleiermacher on sax and flute, Bernd Oezsevim on drums, and his daughter Cavana Lee-Hampel on vocals, entering the venue from the rear of the auditorium and making their way to the stage in a Conga line to the aptly titled “Kindred Spirits”. “Musically I prefer that you don’t have to fight for your space, but also listen to the other players”, Hampel notes. “In the end it is the spiritual value that determines whether something stays with the listener or not.” Götz Bühler
Content
New Waves / 2004
Godzilla
Smiling Energy
Approachable
Bounce
Workout
Magic Touch (ded. to Danilo Cardoso)
Interview with Gunter Hampel (by Götz Bühler)
Performers
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More from this series
Among jazz fans, you can have a lot of fun arguing whether “European Jazz” is a useful counterpoint to the American tradition, an original supplement thereto or “is worth less than American jazz on the market” as it can be read in a Wikipedia forum. There is no doubt that there have been and are gifted musicians this side of the Atlantic, who have molded and formed jazz for decades. They have developed very unique playing styles by merging European music traditions with American influences. To give these pioneers of European jazz a stage was the idea for the series of articles “European Jazz Legends”, which has been launched in the magazine Jazz thing in their 100th issue in September 2013. The musical highlights of the concerts and the on-stage interviews with Götz Bühler were released on these CDs.