Jazz workshop Peitz

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The Jazzwerkstatt Peitz was a series of events for jazz - and later also for new improvisational music in Peitz , which Peter "Jimi" Metag (1950–2013) and Ulli Blobel carried out from 1973 to 1982. Sometimes more than 3000 people from all over the GDR came to the concerts with international performers, which took place without involvement in state institutions, to experience contemporary music. The series has been continued annually with a festival since 2011.

history

Metag and Blobel organized several soul music concerts in the Peitz film theater from 1969 onwards . In September 1971 the two organized a first concert with jazz; Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky's quartet played in the Peitzer cinema hall. Since June 1973, further jazz concerts have been held under the title Jazzwerkstatt Peitz : On June 2, 1973 SOK , Praxis II , an octet around Manfred Schulze and a big band around Ulrich Gumpert played . Half a year later the jazz workshop No. 2 was held. In 1974 four jazz concerts took place in the Peitz film theater; In addition to groups from the GDR, ensembles from Poland and the ČSSR have also been invited.

In addition to regular bands, such as the Friedhelm Schönfeld trio , the Zentralquartett (then still known as “Synopsis”), the duo Rudolf Dašek & Jiří Stivín , the Globe Unity Orchestra , Ken Hyders “Talisker”, Elton Dean's “Ninesense” or the “Galaxy Dream Band ”by Gunter Hampel , there repeatedly appeared ad hoc ensembles; Ideas for this came up not only from the two organizers, but also from Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Günter Baby Sommer , who almost became something of a “curator” of the series. Manfred Schulze was also an important source of ideas. A first (illegal) stage meeting between Sommer and Peter Kowald , who at the time had no permission to perform in the GDR, took place as a “summer-winter duo” as part of a 1976 concert. The first concerts in Peitz also laid the foundation for the further development of groups such as Gumpert - Malfatti - Oxley , Leo Smith - Peter Kowald - Baby Sommer or "Doppelmoppel" with Conny and Hannes Bauer , Joe Sachse and Uwe Kropinski .

The approval of the concerts by the authorities initially went smoothly. Usually several groups were invited and performed one after the other. Soon the Peitz cinema with its 350 seats became too small, so that additional concerts were organized in the afternoon or the next day or the organizers switched to a larger cinema in Cottbus .

From 1979, when the first open-air concert was planned, cooperation with the GDR State Artists' Agency was necessary. The cooperation with the embassies of countries like Great Britain or the USA as well as the German permanent representation in East Berlin led to the financing of the journey, in some cases also to the assumption of fees. In addition, the jazz workshop expanded and tours from Wismar to Ilmenau took place beyond the Peitz stage , as free jazz was “popular” in the GDR.

On June 23, 1979, the first festival took place on the open-air stage of Peitz with the jazz workshop No. 28 , from 3 p.m. to midnight “in the absence of adequate lighting and lack of stage spotlights on the longest Saturday of the year.” In the summer of 1980, a second edition of the Festivals as a jazz workshop Peitz No. 36 ; it started an hour earlier. In 1981 the festival, jazz workshop No. 41 even lasted three days, from Friday to Sunday (June 19-21); Additional concerts also took place in the cinema and in Cottbus. At least 3,000 visitors came. "The performances of Albert Mangelsdorff , the Gunter Hampel Galaxy Dream Band and Brötzmann - Miller - Moholo remain legendary." The jazz workshop also became increasingly attractive to the GDR blues scene , for whom the music played there was more of a background. The open air concert itself turned into a huge happening, a “Woodstock in the Spreewald”. Peitz thus became a “synonym for a non-conformist way of life”.

The Peitz jazz workshop was also considered to be “the top event for Europe's free jazz elite”. In Peitz, before GDR musicians were allowed to travel to western countries, encounters with western musicians took place; "A continuity of the workshop work developed - both for instrumentations exclusively with GDR musicians as well as for international workshop instrumentations." Since 1979 Rolf Reichelt has broadcast recordings of concerts from Peitz on Berlin radio and radio DDR II . Bert Noglik used the encounters with the international musicians to later conduct interviews summarized in a book. In retrospect, Noglik finds it “remarkable that the organizer activities, which were only partially sanctioned by the state cultural policy, were perceived and disseminated in this way by an official GDR medium.” These recordings were later also used to create sound carriers.

Similar to the jazz workshop No. 46 , in which Joe McPhee , Urs Voerkel and the Feminist Improvising Group were supposed to participate, the open-air concert was banned in 1982; Blobel also had to stop working as a tour operator in the GDR. That was the end of the Peitz jazz workshop in the GDR.

New start in 2011

The then Mayor of Peitz, Hans-Joachim Gahler, who knew Ulli Blobel from school together, urged him to revive the tradition. For health reasons, Jimi Metag canceled his participation in organizing the Peitz jazz workshop . As a result, a planned concert had to take place in Berlin instead of in Peitz. The jazz workshop no. 48 only took place in May 2011; that was “a short-term decision. The book "Woodstock am Karpfenteich", which was written together with other authors, was to be presented. "In May 2011 the concert took place in the old movie theater in Peitz, which is now used by the fire brigade; a kind of veterans' meeting. Another Peitz jazz workshop took place in 2012 , the 49th in continuous counting. The jazz workshop Peitz No. 50 joined in June 2013, some of the concerts were recorded by the RBB . A box with 4 CDs with recordings from 1980 to 1982 was released for this anniversary.

literature

Movie

  • Peitz - Woodstock at the carp pond. Documentary, Germany, 2018, 29:10 min., Script and director: Tim Evers, production: rbb , series: Discover Brandenburg , first broadcast: July 21, 2018 on rbb television , synopsis by rbb, online video available until 21. July 2019. Among others with Uli Blobel, Matthias Creutziger (photographer), Thomas Krüger ( BpB ), Mayor Jörg Krakow.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ klt: Jazz Workshop founder "Jimi" Metag is dead. ( Memento of 3 November 2013, Internet Archive ). In: Märkische Oderzeitung , May 15, 2013.
  2. ^ Tobias Richtsteig: Jazz Workshop Berlin-Brandenburg. Everything becomes much more alive. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , January 16, 2009.
  3. ↑ Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Afternoon in Peitz , in: Woodstock am Karpfenteich , p. 11.
  4. ↑ Ulli Blobel, Russenpanzer, FDJ and Free Jazz , in: Woodstock am Karpfenteich , p. 14ff.
  5. ↑ Ulli Blobel, Russenpanzer, FDJ and Free Jazz , in: Woodstock am Karpfenteich , p. 16.
  6. ↑ The British donated 20 flight tickets for the London Jazz Composers Orchestra . See Hans Hielscher: Jazz in the capital: Lifelong passion. In: Der Spiegel , August 14, 2009.
  7. ↑ a b Ulli Blobel, Russenpanzer, FDJ and Free Jazz , in: Woodstock am Karpfenteich , p. 17.
  8. ↑ Jazzwerkstatt Peitz (The Blueser)
  9. ^ Hans Hielscher: Jazz in the capital: Lifelong passion. In: Der Spiegel , August 14, 2009.
  10. ↑ a b Bert Noglik, Peitz and the fire eater from the Center Pompidou , p. 26.
  11. ^ Bert Noglik, Jazzwerkstatt International , Verlag Neue Musik 1981, Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek 1983, ISBN 3-499-17791-9 .
  12. ↑ For example Manfred Schoof , Gianluigi Trovesi , Barre Phillips , Günter Baby Sommer, Peitzer Grand with four , Steve Lacy , Live At Jazzwerkstatt Peitz ; both at Jazzwerkstatt Berlin. The book Woodstock am Karpfenteich also comes with a CD with historical recordings by various musicians.
  13. ↑ Ulli Blobel, Russenpanzer, FDJ and Free Jazz , in: Woodstock am Karpfenteich , p. 18f.
  14. ↑ a b Ingrid Hoberg: Peitz - Berlin and then the whole wide world of jazz. In: Lausitzer Rundschau , May 30, 2012, interview with Ulli Blobel.
  15. ^ Ingrid Hoberg: Jazzwerkstatt Peitz No. 48. ( Memento from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: live-in-reitwein.de , May 14, 2011, gleanings with photos and quotes from the Lausitzer Rundschau.
  16. ↑ Program: jazzwerkstatt Peitz No. 50 . June 7th - 9th, 2013. ( Memento of September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: sounds-of-hollywood.de , 2013, (PDF; 2 p., 202 kB).
  17. ↑ Jazzwerkstatt Peitz No. 50. In: Discogs , 2013.
  18. ^ Hans Hielscher: GDR Jazz History. Half-legal chess moves in the Spreewald. In: Kultur-Spiegel , June 25, 2011, with photo series.