Eisenach Jazz Club

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The Eisenach Jazz Club , founded in January 1959, is the oldest East German jazz club . In a time when the official cultural policy in the GDR the Jazz faced still suspicious, had the club foundation and its activities, signaling effect and contributed to the spread of jazz in the GDR at.

In addition to a wide range of events, the jazz club volunteered to look after the international jazz archive .

history

Swing and jazz have a long tradition in Eisenach that goes back to the 1920s. In 1930, jazz was banned in Thuringia by the so-called Sauckel Decree. As a result, in Eisenach, as in other cities in Germany, an illegal jazz club based on the model of the French Hot Club de Jazz , which is considered the forerunner of the Eisenach jazz club.

The Eisenach Jazz Club was officially founded by Manfred Blume (* 1940, † 1986), the father of the boogie and jazz pianist Alexander Blume , on January 26, 1959 as "AG Jazz" at VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach . Blume and his colleagues organized concerts, lectures as well as record and discussion evenings. In April 1959 the first issue of the magazine Die Posaune was published , initially still handmade.

Blum's private contacts with his brother Roland Blume, the saxophonist in the Oscar Klein band, made the jazz club famous beyond the country's borders. When the blues pianist Günter Boas toured the GDR with Oscar Klein's band in 1978 and met Reinhard Lorenz from Eisenach in East Berlin , that was not only the beginning of a friendship, but also the foundation stone for the jazz archive that was later founded .

After Blum's death, Reinhard Lorenz took over the management of the club.

Current concept

The club, which has around 170 members, is domiciled in the “Posaune” jazz cellar in the former malt and coffee roastery in Eisenach, which is now the “ Kulturfabrik Alte Mälzerei ” industrial monument .

Reinhard Lorenz is a full-time head of culture for the city of Eisenach. The sports and theater scientist, born in 1952, took an early interest in jazz and was a freelance jazz editor at the radio station Radio DDR II until 1989 .

The club organizes around 50 concerts, symposia and readings every year and looks after the international jazz archive. The Folk Section was newly founded, expanding the club's offer with new concerts and events.

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