Herbie Hess

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Herbie Hess (* October 28, 1933 in Altenburg as Kurt Herbert Hess ; † June 23, 2015 ) was a German jazz musician ( piano , clarinet , tenor saxophone ) and teacher.

Live and act

Childhood, youth and family

Herbie Hess received Dr. Hoch's conservatory trained on the piano

Hess was born in Altenburg, where his parents lived at the time, because his father Herbert Hess was temporarily employed on the stages in Gotha - the only reference to his hometown, as the family was actually based in Frankfurt am Main . As a child he attended the Spohr School in Frankfurt's Nordend . Learning to play the piano was something he was born with. First he received private lessons, from 1943 he attended Dr. Hoch's Conservatory . There he heard the effects of the air raid on October 4th, in which the building at Eschersheimer Landstrasse 4 was completely destroyed. His piano lessons continued, but now in the Passavant-Gontard'schen Palais between Hauptwache and Rossmarkt , until it was destroyed in the air raids on Frankfurt am Main on February 8, 1944. After that, lessons were held in private apartments until they were also destroyed by bombs . During the bombing raids on the city, he was staying with his mother's relatives in Wetterau in Upper Hesse .

His parents, Marie (nee Mason) and Herbert Hess were when alto or tenor at home in classical singing specialist, he that as a teenager, and also an only child had not quite easy, with his preference for the less compliant Jazz enforce. This arose with him in the immediate post-war years, in particular through the influence of the US occupation soldiers and their radio station AFN . The initial spark was his first jazz listening experience, which he had at the age of around 12 or 13 in the spa gardens of Bad Nauheim , where a jazz band performed. From 1952 he learned the clarinet through private lessons.

His Abitur at the Frankfurt Model School attested him very good performance in the subject of music, so that he wanted to continue on this path. On the part of his father, however, there were at the same time efforts to secure his son, who was not very much oriented towards reality, economically for life, and to aim for civil servant status. A predominantly business-oriented apprenticeship at the Oberfinanzdirektion Frankfurt am Main followed. The prospect of doing part of the training and the later service at the main customs office in uniform, however, put Herbie Hess off, who was absolutely not oriented towards formalities.

education

From 1960 to 1964 he studied music and history at the Frankfurt University of Music and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , where he passed the state examination for teaching at secondary schools. During this time he refreshed his training in classical piano music with Erich Flinsch in order to be able to meet the expected requirements of the exam after his performances in jazz.

Career

After his legal traineeship, he worked full-time in the civil service at various schools as a teacher (most recently senior student council) in the secondary level II , for example at the Frankfurt Goethe-Gymnasium , at the Carl-Schurz-Schule (Gymnasium), at the Helmholtzschule (Gymnasium) and outside Frankfurt at the Bertha von Suttner School (comprehensive school) in Nidderau and most recently at the Goetheschule (grammar school) in Neu-Isenburg . He taught music and history as well as English as a substitute. In jazz, Hess played the piano and clarinet, later adding the tenor saxophone. His preferred style was Chicago jazz , which was mainly influenced by the 1920s , but also swing and New Orleans jazz ; he admired the performance of greats like Count Basie , Bix Beiderbecke , Duke Ellington , Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden .

From 1955 to 1957, along with Ata Berk , Carlo Bohländer , Joki Freund , Horst Lippmann , Emil Mangelsdorff and Werner Rehm, he was one of the Two Beat Stompers founded by Günter Boas , one of the most important traditional bands of the post-war period, which was best known until the 1960s German band of this style was. With the Two Beat Stompers he performed at the Domicile du Jazz , later the Jazzkeller Frankfurt , and took part in the German Jazz Festival. During this phase, Hess was honored as the best pianist at the Düsseldorf Amateur Jazz Festival in 1956 . With the Two Beat Stompers he recorded his first composition "Herbie's First Blues", which was later followed by the more important "Blues For Bix", which he also completely arranged. Until 1963 he played with various jazz bands, including the New Orleans Ramblers (with Gustl Mayer , Peter Trunk ).

He was active in Frankfurt jazz bands such as the Hot Swingers and the New Orleans Jazz Babies . In the 1970s he often appeared in clubs such as the Frankfurter Sinkkasten , the Jazz Life Podium and the jazz bar Down by the Riverside am Main , but also nationally in many cities, for example together with Rolf Hetebrüg, Conny Jackel , Klaus Lohfink , Gustl Mayer, Bill Ramsey or Roland Schneider . With the New Orleans Jazz Babies and the Hot Swingers , records were made in the 1970s.

Musical tours, some of which lasted several months, took Herbie Hess to France, Morocco, Spain and the United Kingdom.

A heart attack suffered in 2004, which made it necessary to implant a stent , impressed Hess, who had been actively jazzing up until then, that he largely gave up making music.

Radio and television

The first TV appearance of Hess took place with Friedrich Gulda on Südwestfunk (SWF) on December 6, 1955 in the program "Jazz - Heard and Seen". The Two Beat Stompers performed together with the Chet Baker Quartet . When Hessian Radio and the ZDF created a variety of radio and television programs, where Hess collaborated musically, such as two television productions hr with the titles of "mainstream" (Bill Ramsey & Hot Swingers) and "Boogie & Blues" (Bill Ramsey, Gottfried Böttger , Roland Schneider) in 1978. In the late 1970s he regularly played the musical interludes within the band for the radio broadcast series "Inventor Exchange" with Joachim Bublath and Barbara Dickmann as well as appearances for several years at the international radio exhibition in Berlin . There he accompanied singers such as Katja Ebstein , Joan Faulkner , Reinhard Mey , Bill Ramsey and Konstantin Wecker .

Herbie Hess initially lived in the Frankfurt districts of Nordend , Bornheim and Seckbach for decades . From 2008 he lived in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , and since 2013 on the island of Rügen .

Compositions

  • "Herbie's First Blues" (comp), recorded with the Two Beat Stompers
  • "Blues For Bix" (comp, arr) incl. Complete arrangement, recorded with the Two Beat Stompers

Discography

  • various with Two Beat Stompers : NN, Brunswick
  • Two Beat Stompers : “That's Dixieland!”, Brunswick 10054EBP, recording April 8, 1956 in Berlin, cast by Werner Rehm (tp), Dick Simon (tb), Emil Mangelsdorff (cl), Herbert Hess (p), Gerd Schuttrumpf ( bj), Joki Freund (tu), Horst Lippmann (d)
  • Hot Swingers : "Dixieland Party Namber Wann" (LP), CBS 81258, cast by Roland Schneider (from left), Klaus Lohfink (trb), Ata Berk (dr), Rolf Hetebrüg (tp), Herbie Hess (cl), Jo Schomann ( b), Gustl Mayer (sax)
  • New Orleans Jazz Babies : “The Entertainer” Rag (LP), biton Frankfurt am Main, BIT2113, recording 22/23. November 1974, line-up: Herbert Christ (tp), Harald Blöcher (trb), Klaus Pehl (cl), Herbie Hess (p), Helmut Grahl (bjo, git, voc), Ernst Schneider (b), Peter Hermann (dr)
  • Hot Swingers , New Orleans Jazz Babies , Two Beat Stompers and others - on “Jazz from Frankfurt”, LP, City of Frankfurt am Main, Office for Tourism, Congresses and Twinning, 1979

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Jazz Discography
  2. ↑ JazzNews / Obituaries , Jazzinstitut Darmstadt from June 24, 2015, accessed on April 23, 2018
  3. ^ Carlo Bohländer, Karl Heinz Holler, Christian Pfarr: Reclams Jazzführer. Stuttgart 1970. 5th edition. Stuttgart 2000.
  4. ↑ Michael Rauhut, Reinhard Lorenz (ed.): I've had the blues a little longer: Traces of a music in Germany. Ch. Links Verlag. Berlin 2008, p. 268.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Schwab: The Frankfurt Sound. Societätsverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 129f.
  6. ^ Hans-Jürgen Linke: On the death of the jazz player Roland Schneider . In: Frankfurter Rundschau, December 28, 2015. On: fr.de, accessed on March 26, 2017
  7. ↑ Jürgen Schwab: The Frankfurt Sound. Societätsverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 213.
  8. ^ TV broadcasts by the SWF Jazz editorial team. Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, accessed on June 28, 2015 ( Memento from October 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Two Beat Stompers, Brunswick 10054EBP
  10. ^ Two Beat Stompers, Brunswick 10054EBP
  11. ↑ Jazz from Frankfurt , LP, City of Frankfurt am Main, Office for Tourism, Congresses and Town Partnerships, 1979
personal data
SURNAME Hess, Herbie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hess, Kurt Herbert (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician (piano, clarinet, tenor saxophone) and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Altenburg
DATE OF DEATH June 2015