Roulette is excited to partner with world-renowned Jazz label and producer jazzwerkstatt to present a two-day festival.
On the festival jazzwerkstatt notes, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the direct exchange between the New York and Berlin scenes has largely come to a standstill. With many hurdles, we were nevertheless able to present many New York musicians in our Berlin concert series and the festival in Peitz, including Craig Taborn, Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, Jaimie Branch and many more. The New York Journey now goes in both directions. We are happy to present many of our Berlin musicians in the two-day festival at Roulette. The project sees itself as an invitation to exchange ideas, to get to know each other, and to consolidate existing contacts.
Day two schedule:
MICHAEL MOORE, GREG COHEN, JOE HERTENSTEIN
The drummer Joe Hertenstein has been living in New York for 13 years.Ten years ago, jazzwerkstatt released a CD of him playing with Jon Irabagon and Achim Tang. The American clarinetist and alto saxophonist Michael Moore moved to Amsterdam in 1982. He is known worldwide for his beautiful sound and rich musical imagination. The American double bass player Greg Cohen, who shook up the New York jazz scene for many years alongside John Zorn and Dave Douglas, has lived in Berlin for several years.
IF YOU CAN’T GO OUTSIDE… GO INSIDE
JULIE SASSOON SOLO
Much of her work is based on autobiographical experiences. Born and raised in England, Julie Sassoon first studied art, classical piano, and violin. But it was jazz and musical improvisation that liberated her and allowed her to express her innermost feelings. The pianist, who has lived in Berlin since 2009, called one of her albums Land of Shadows. In it, she reflected on her identity as a Jewish musician whose family immigrated to England in the late 1930s and whose great-grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz. Her playing vacillates between gentle touch and vehemence. In those moments when Julie Sassoon appears to sink into the piano, she is most deeply enveloped in herself.
KURT SCHWITTERS: DIE URSONATE / Music by A. L. THOMAS KRÜGER
w./BRASS QUINTET POTSA LOTSA
‘The world in upheaval’ – this is probably a fitting description of the time during which Kurt Schwitters (1887 – 1948), one of the most important German artists of the first half of the 20th century, created his main collection of work. In addition to the Merzbau, a kind of self-made grotto consisting of spatial collages, the poem Anna Blume and the Ursonate are among the German artist’s most outstanding creations. His works shaped the then burgeoning Dada movement, which emerged as a kind of anarchic anti-art in the Weimar Republic and is still seen as influential in various European and international art movements.
“RINNZEKETE BEE NNZ KRR MÜÜ? ZIIUU ENNZE, ZIIUU RINNZKRRMÜÜ, RAKETE BEE BEE, RRUMMPFF TILLFF TOOOO?” – EXCERPT FROM THE TEXT OF THE URSONATA
It seems that the world has once again fallen into turmoil. Destructive forces are increasingly gaining influence, utopian ideas are on the defensive against reactionary, backward-looking ideologies, all of which reminds us of the era of Dadaism, which is currently celebrating its hundredth anniversary. Thomas Krüger, Anke Lucks, and the jazz group Potsa Lotsa took this occasion to set the Dadaist sound poem in four movements to music for the first time and breathe new life into it. They do this with a 100-year-old text that remains as relevant as ever.
Ulli Blobel is the man behind the label jazzwerkstatt and the concert series of the same name. With well over 250 CDs, the label jazzwerkstatt shapes the image of so-called jazz in the capital. The Berlin label was named after the legendary festival, the Jazzwerkstatt Peitz, which is one of the oldest jazz festivals in Germany and from 1973 became a mecca of free jazz and
improvised music.
