Programme Friday, 1.11.2024

One-time Berlin resident, drummer and composer John Hollenbeck, performs his piece “The Drum Major Instinct”, with a crew of topnotch Berlin musicians also including some of his former colleagues of the Jazz Institut Berlin. The piece is built around one of the last sermons by Martin Luther King Jr. that he held in 1968 in Atlanta shortly before he was assassinated. King paid two historically very important visits to the divided city of Berlin in mid-September 1964 also holding an opening speech at the Berliner Festwochen at the Philharmonie Berlin. In addition to that he honoured the first Berliner Jazztage by dedicating a remarkable preface on the relevance of jazz also 60 years ago. The multi-media presentation will interleave Hollenbeck’s performance with a selection of legendary concert footages from the history of Jazzfest Berlin, projected on multiple screens.

The evening at the mainstage of Haus der Berliner Festspiele begins with a global brew cooked by Swedish trumpeter Goran Kajfeš whose Tropiques go well beyond the tropics. That set is followed by the long-awaited Berlin debut of pianist Kris Davis’s shapeshifting “Diatom Ribbons”, powered by the legendary drummer Terri Lyne Carrington with turntablist Val Jeanty and Berlin-based powerhouse bassist Nick Dunston. The final mainstage performance is by Trio Tapestry, saxophonist Joe Lovano’s exquisitely intimate ensemble with the brilliant pianist Marilyn Crispell – who plays her own solo set on Thursday evening – and drummer Carmen Castaldi. But there’s more action beyond the confines of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Berlin is a magnet for improvisers all over the world, drawing Argentine saxophonist Camila Nebbia as well as the acclaimed British keyboardist Kit Downes, both of whom have taken up residency here, the city in which they came together with London-based drummer Andrew Lisle to engage in deeply considered yet attractively gritty free improvisations. They’ll bring that special rapport to the cozy A-Trane, one of Jazzfest Berlin’s long standing partners. Over at Quasimodo The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters serve up a much different, harder hitting strain of improv. Powerhouse Austrian drummer Lukas König provides deep propulsion and heavy beats while Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and Italian trumpeter Gabriele Mitelli unleash fiercely slashing lines and elusive textures, leaving the rising British turntablist Mariam Rezaei to both pull it all together all the while injecting a steady stream of counterpoint, rhythmic reinforcement, noise and more.