Helmut Brandt (musician)
Helmut Brandt (born January 7, 1931 in Berlin ; † July 26, 2001 in Stuttgart ) was a German jazz musician (baritone and tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger). He was a pioneer of post-war jazz in Germany and one of the central musicians of German cool jazz .
Live and act
Brandt started playing the violin and mandolin at the age of ten. As a teenager he also learned guitar, clarinet and tenor saxophone. During his studies at the Klindworth - Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin , he played with a semi-professional band in the legendary jazz bar " Die Bathtub ". With his sextet, he regularly won the jazz competitions held in the Friedrichstadtpalast in the following years . From 1954 he concentrated on the baritone saxophone . In 1955 he founded the Helmut Brandt Combo as a quintet, which won many polls in the following years and initially - for example at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival - surprised the audience with "its idiosyncratic sound". In 1957 he performed the "Concert for Jazz Combo" at the SDR Jazz Meeting Point. Conny Jackel (tp, until 1959), Günter Noris (p), Erich Gerosch (b) and Hans-Dieter Taubert (d) played in his combo ; For a long time he worked with the pianist Günter Noris and the bassist Klaus Gernhuber , who then took over the band.
In 1959, Brandt longtime member of the RIAS Dance Orchestra under Werner Müller and was only occasionally present due to his work as an arranger of the orchestra on the jazz scene: in 1967 he was a member, as well as Stefan von Dobrzynski , for by Don Ellis led Berlin Dream Band , the celebrated a great success at the Berlin Jazz Festival . In 1970 the Berlin All Stars performed at the same festival. Since 1974 he has played in the Mainstream Orchestra he founded , a septet without a keyboard instrument, regularly in Berlin jazz clubs and on tours.
In West Germany and West Berlin, Brandt was the best-known German jazz musician in the 1950s, alongside Albert Mangelsdorff and Emil Mangelsdorff . When he left the RIAS Big Band in 1997 for reasons of age, the CD RIAS Big Band Berlin Presents Helmut Brandt was produced in his honor .
Brandt's compositions partly overcome the jazz idiom. His “Concert for Jazz Combo” and especially his “Symphonic Poem for Big Band and Symphony Orchestra”, which premiered in 1998 and was highlighted by the specialist press, should be mentioned here.
On February 3, 2000, he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon.
Lexigraphic entries
- Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler, Christian Pfarr: Reclam's Jazz Guide . 4th, revised and supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-010355-X .
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
- Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .
Web links
- Helmut Brandt at Discogs (English)
- List of publications according to musik-sammler.de
- Obituary by Marcus A. Woelfle (English)
- Obituary on jazzprofessional.com ( memento from March 18, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
Remarks
- ↑ Reclam's jazz guide contains January 1, 1931 as a different date of birth
- ↑ According to Kunzler, his composition “Sum”, which premiered there, was the most discussed contribution to the festival.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Dohl: The History of the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt (1953-1966). In: Jazz Podium . wolfgang-dohl.de, archived from the original on September 30, 2007 ; accessed on March 13, 2017 .
- ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brandt, Helmut |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German jazz musician and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 7, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 26, 2001 |
| Place of death | Stuttgart |