Jazzkeller Frankfurt

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The inconspicuous entrance of the Frankfurt Jazzkeller. The right door leads to the jazz cellar via stairs.

The Jazzkeller is a venue for jazz music founded as a jazz club in Frankfurt am Main .

It was founded as domicile du jazz in 1952 by the trumpeter Carlo Bohländer in Frankfurt in the cellar of Kleine Bockenheimer Strasse 18a and is called “the cellar” under “initiated”. A narrow staircase with 19 stone steps leads down.

history

Sculpture Black Treble Clef from 1982 by Taro Miyabe in front of the Jazzkeller on Horst-Lippmann-Platz

The press release for the opening of the Jazzkeller stated: “Modern musicians should be given the opportunity to play jazz without a license in front of an expert audience. In the club, which is intended as a 'closed society', the musicians will come together as in an 'artistic reservoir' to play freely and free of charge. ”There the Two Beat Stompers performed two days a week, but the important thing was the daily Jam sessions for the musicians that took place there when they came back from their performances in the American soldiers' clubs: "We went there practically every evening to play," recalled Albert Mangelsdorff . “This allowed you to develop what would probably never have been possible without the basement”.

In the 1950s and 1960s in particular, the cellar was important for the contact between German and American jazz musicians . Therefore, almost every big name in jazz was on this stage: Don Ellis , Bill Ramsey , Cedar Walton , Eddie Harris , Gary Peacock or Joe Henderson played here regularly as long as they were stationed in the Rhine-Main area. The Modern Jazz Quartet , Sonny Rollins , Stan Getz , Dizzy Gillespie or musicians from the Ellington Band played here with their Frankfurt colleagues after their guest performances.

The civil engineer Willy Geipel (1930–2011) took over the Jazzkeller in 1956 from Carlo Bohländer and led it beyond its 25th anniversary in 1977.

In 1963 the cellar changed its name and was henceforth called Jazzkeller. Instead of the jam sessions, groups now regularly played there for a modest fee. But the innovative claim remained: In the late 1960s, Volker Kriegel developed his form of rock jazz with other musicians . Albert Mangelsdorff tried out the possibility of organizing an evening solo on the trombone in front of an audience . In January 1978 the Jazzkeller was up for sale.

In April 1986 the then landlady Christiane Spieler, in collaboration with Katharina Goth and Annemarie Roelofs , initiated the 1st International Women's Jazz Festival Canaille in the Jazzkeller , in which musicians from the former Feminist Improvising Group formed the core.

Current concept

The Natalia Karmanzin Trio 2007 in the Jazzkeller

A little later in 1986, Regine Dobberschütz and her then partner Eugen Hahn, previously bassist with the Modern Soul Band , took over the management of the cellar. In response to the changed demand from the public, disco evenings were introduced where soul and acid jazz was played. In addition to regular concerts, special concerts are held with big stars - for example Chet Baker , Dizzy Gillespie , Archie Shepp and Sheila Jordan could be heard. The Junge Szene Frankfurt series, curated by Peter Klohmann , takes place once a month , in which a band of young musicians introduces itself and then a jam session takes place.

Web links

Commons : Jazzkeller Frankfurt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ cit. n. Jürgen Schwab, The Frankfurt Sound. A city and its jazz history (s). Frankfurt a. M .: Societäts-Verlag, 2005, p. 100
  2. ↑ n. J. Schwab, Der Frankfurt Sound, p. 101
  3. ↑ a b 25 years of Jazzkeller - a documentation by Volker Kriegel on YouTube
  4. ↑ n. J. Schwab, Der Frankfurt Sound, pp. 188f.
  5. ↑ n. J. Schwab, Der Frankfurt Sound, pp. 176f.
  6. ↑ In 1977, however, Wilhelm E. Liefland questioned the “commercialism” of the then landlord and co-owner Willi Geipel. See Liefland At the jazz cellar, the jazz killer bars with music in Frankfurt gnaw. Difficult but not hopeless , Neue Musik Zeitung , August / September 1977
  7. ^ N. J. Schwab, Der Frankfurt Sound, p. 227, partially corrected by contemporary sources, evening post / night edition of April 10, 1986 and Werner Petermann Fein, that you are a canaille in: Frankfurter Rundschau of April 10, 1986
  8. ↑ Where's the scene here , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 6, 2013

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 51.8 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 25.5"  E