Enjoy Jazz and More 2020

Various venues
Enjoy Jazz and More
Heidelberg, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Schwetzingen
October 14-30, 2020

Enjoy Jazz is a festival that stretches across 7 weeks from the beginning of October to halfway through November in the urban area of Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg in southwestern Germany. The long stretch had a couple of 'advantages' under the conditions of the COVID pandemic. The organization did not have to deal with a huge number of visitors in a short time span.

To attend this festival for two and half weeks in October 2020 during the COVID pandemic with the possibility to visit concerts with musicians from a diversity of European countries, Ukraine, Romania, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, UK, Netherlands and Germany, was a rare and beautiful, intense and memorable experience. It was an experience of communion and intense mutual connectedness in confident, calm and focused spirit. In spite of the numerous daily extra efforts, it proceeded in the sense of the obvious and necessary. Transportation and the concerts were organized securely at a diversity of concert locations in the area. Limitation of the audience numbers never felt odd. It increased the involvement (on both sides) with beneficial atmospheric effects.

Meanwhile, also in the Mannheim-Heidelberg-Ludwigshafen urban area, the infection numbers continuously increased at high speed. Imperturbably keeping the festival open meant a new precious chance each new day.

Overview

Prior to my arrival at Heidelberg 10 concerts already had taken place from October 2 on. Before going into the experienced performances in more detail, here is an overview of the 11 (out of 19) concerts I will deal with.

• Tania Giannouli Book of Lost Songs (Greece/Italy) —Das Haus—Ludwigshafen
• Tania Giannouli solo (Greece)—Kunsthalle Mannheim (Museum of Modern Art)
• Auer Jähn/Exposition Henning Bolte: Live Drawing(s) (Germany/Netherlands)— Tandem Art Space—Heidelberg
• Nik Bärtsch solo (Switzerland)—Friedenskirche Ludwigshafen
• Anja Lechner/Björn Meyer (Germany/Switzerland)— Christuskirche Heidelberg
• Anja Lechner/François Couturier (Germany/France) —Rokokotheater—Schwetzingen
• Blind Date (Germany/Tunesia/Netherlands)—Reiss-Engelhorn Museen—Mannheim
• Allen Blairman Treasure Chest (Germany)— Karlstorbahnhof— Heidelberg
• Sokratis Sinopoulos (Greece)— Friedenskirche Heidelberg
• Daniel Erdmann (Germany/France)—Das Haus- -Ludwigshafen
• Katherine Zyabluk (Poland/Ukraine)—Das Haus— Ludwigshafen
• Vincent Peirani/Emile Parisien (France) and Carte Blanche Erwin Ditzner (Germany, Netherlands), family program

Tania Giannouli

The Greek composer and pianist was no newcomer for the festival. Last year she made an outstanding entrée with her unusual Rewa trio comprising Maori musician Rob Thorne and Italian percussion master Michele Rabbia. This year she shone with two exciting premières, the vocal project "Book of Lost Songs" with renowned Neapolitan vocalist Maria Pia De Vito and, instigated by Enjoy's artistic director Rainer Kern, a daring solo concert at Mannheim's well-known Kunsthalle (museum of Modern Art).

With her strong and attractive themes, she invited and captured her audience to enter her very own musical universe and follow her in her irresistible expansions. These expansions, stemming from the inner kernel of a piece, felt as natural extensions of the melodic core leading listeners into surprising wildly stirring sonorities. Her playful and highly dynamic inside-outside maneuvers unlocked primal forces and a vivid range of flickering mood shadings. From that underlying anchoring listeners were set free to surrender to oceanic turbulences and swellings. To achieve this intense loading and dynamics in live performance an ignition of dialectics of pre-structured elements and on the spot orchestration of expansions is demanded in an overarching dramaturgy. In both concerts it turned out that Tania Giannouli has a deep-seated capacity to achieve that. By this she turned out to be a remarkable border-crosser between a classical approach and an open improvisational approach. Here, her capacity to keep it in the bedding and enable wildly raging and spraying overflow revealed, or, to put it differently, her capacity to bring both sides inseparably together. The first première, Book Of Lost Songs, a brand-new constellation with renowned vocalist Maria Pia De Vito at the center, took off at Ludwigsburg venue Das Haus, a venue hosting a multiplicity of the festival's concerts. This Greco-Roman force with Giannouli and De Vito, Manolis Manousakis (electronics), Guido De Flaviis (soprano/bari-sax) and Michele Rabbia (percussion/electronics), went along a heaving passage of hanging tintinnabuli, dark zones of drone, roaring dragon sceneries, and solemn contemplation—-a very unique Giannoulian universe of Klangfügung (interlocking of sound elements) and Klangerfüllung (sound fulfillment), a movable epic sound theatre. While Giannouli set the framing and guarded it with care, her fellow musicians went full out, igniting fireworks of burning sound modulations, heavy outbursts, mighty flow and mysterious flickering. Rabbia aroused massive sound forces, as well as subtle rustling, de Flaviis let his baritone sax speak in remarkable tongues, and Manousaki scattered sand into the gearbox by injecting all kinds of subcutaneous grinding noise.

Listeners might have thought of a southern version of Fire Orchestra or hear Southern Italian Tammurriata sounding through. At other moments you could get the impression that Arvo Pärt and Jon Hassell had sneaked in, that the mood elegance of Bernardo Sassetti shone through and in other parts Diamanda Galás and Sidsel Endresen came to mind. De Vito unleashed all registers of the human voice in driving articulation and fabulously expressive ways. The whole turned out as a vibrant ensemble of high potential for future thriving performances.

Two days later Giannouli made her appearance at the sold-out large atrium of the Mannheim museum of modern art (Kunsthalle). The huge space turned out to function as a natural comprehensive sound body, fully carrying and spreading the rich nuances of Giannouli's dynamically orchestrated piano sounds, only slightly balanced by subtle electronic amplification. The physical presence in that vibrant space provided a special sensation and a rushing, uplifting affair—the epitome of the live experience and a revelation emphasized by the two encores.

A visitor to the concert expressed his astonishment and definite surrender as follows: "in the beginning I had difficulties when the music gradually went down almost to a halt and then 'restarted' ... Then I noticed that things were working differently here ... I became quite curious how it would work out and develop. Especially the interior piano playing with all its expansions, distortions and noise avalanches made it extra exciting: it all felt like an intrinsic part of the music. It inseparably belonged to the clearly stated and returning captivating melodic themes. These attractive themes got a much wider and deeper reach and touch by way of it. In that extraordinary combination it made the air and the soul dance."

This reaction indicated the vivid dialectics of Giannouli's music, a characteristic where the flow of the performance flexibly is fed and led by an underlying compositional nerve plexus.

With this solo Giannouli manifested herself as a very unique and forceful voice. It strengthened the ties with the growing audience she has built in recent times. She proved to be a daring female leader from the European periphery that restructured and melded old and new, known and unknown, classical and improvisational elements in vivid and captivating ways. Not a typical jazz cat but an energetic and decisive player with an open and versatile musical mind.

Two duos: Anja Lechner

Cellist Anja Lechner was a welcome guest, who had numerous appearances at the festival and playing in duo seems to be a favorite thing for her. That October week of the festival she devised her new constellation with electric bass guitarist Björn Meyer from Switzerland and her well-tried duo with French pianist François Couturier. With Meyer she played the new "Bordun in Motion" program, with Couturier it was an album release-concert. Lechner and Couturier presented music from their new album <>Lontano<>, the successor to their remarkable debut <>Moderato Cantabile<> (2014).

"Bordun in Motion" originated from a challenging experiment 'Drown the Virus' instigated and documented by musical exploration place Orbital Garden in Bern. Orbital Garden collected one-hour drones played by a variety of musicians as well as one-hour beats combinable with the drones. Both, Meyer and Lechner contributed to it. They had to produce a long lasting, sustained low tone going together with a related melodic line on top of it. You stay in the same place, but the music is expanding. Mobility is limited, but escape is constantly hinted at. Lechner was inclined to bring it to a live-concert situation, but then together with Meyer. Enjoy Jazz took the chance and brought it to the space of Christuskirche in Heidelberg. Cello and electric bass guitar is an unusual combination and drone music is not something easily associated with Anja Lechner. How would it turn out, how would it stay in place and move, how would it sustain and expand? What effect would it have on the mood, or das Gemüt, as you say in German? It was pouring quietly, filigree, glowing slightly, causing tiny flashes in the dark. Sliding sonorities were blooming calmly, creating a floating biphonic 'gemisch,' alternating between centering and acceleration. Actually, it was extraordinarily rich on the micro level and etherical and tending to disappear. It didn't turn out as a heavy drone music trip, but it sharpened the senses for the capture of precious details. It also had—no doubt—a calming effect through experiencing the sonic richness you can generate with restricted means. It turned out to be a valid and interesting approach to open more gates of dawn.

The duo concert of Anja Lechner and François Couturier took place two days later in the Rococo castle of Schwetzingen, a small-town bordering on both Heidelberg and Mannheim. The whole area is full of castles, but Schwetzingen impresses through its sprawling gardens. The small sized, but two-story and richly furnished, rococo theatre appeared the best concert place to sit, to watch, listen, work and enjoy during my two-and-a-half week stay.

Sometimes, essential things accumulate fittingly, emerge as a wondersome unity and fully seize the audience's soul as a naturally immersing force. Grounded in deep mutual trustful dynamics, cellist Anja Lechner and pianist François Couturier accrued to the highest appeal to, and connection with, the audience in the lovely ambiance of the stylish theatre.

The music built a grand unifying arc along a loveable, captivating flow of diversity. Since the duo's memorable "Moderato Cantabile" album from 2014 the cantabile quality has grown to new heights and depths as manifested at this stunning Schwetzingen appearance. They seamlessly let the songs sing themselves -with burning tension over the whole span of time. Through that quality the music connected lively memories from the past—the lontano quality -with the underlying repentance of the present stuck-in-COVID mood and brought about redeeming and encouraging effects -the salvational forces of luminous rising melodies. The music then had a momentaneous gathering effect and raised us to a different level of existence.

This was, so far, the most immersive, touching and memorable live concert I experienced this year. I am still wondering how these two musicians accomplish such an impact, this 'little' extra effect that makes it rise above other excellent concerts—ein Glücksfall anyway.

Nik Bärtsch

After Brad Mehldau, Tania Giannouli and Hermann Kretzschmer (Ensemble Modern), Swiss Zen Groove master Nik Bärtsch (Ronin) continued the solo piano series of this year's edition at Friedenskirche in Ludwigshafen. In the program he would be followed by Katherine Zyabluk, Johanna Summer, Jens Thomas and Michael Wollny.

Known mainly from the modular approach of his group Ronin, it was interesting to see at which degree he would use this approach in a solo concert and which other elements would enter. The difference manifested immediately at the beginning. Bärtsch started 'small,' with explorative and carefully weighed up gestures. Playfully, he then danced between fragile figures, breathing halts, and sudden turns into forceful reverberating grooves. Thereby he bridged the sides of thoughtful-ness and decisive forward attack and transformed underlying tensions into the floating Now.

A Mannheim blind date/Heidelberg exposition of live drawings

Enjoy Jazz not only presents plain concerts but a variety of musical and (interdisciplinary) music related events at different locations spread across the urban area. Tandem Art Space Heidelberg presented an exposition, "Spuren Zu Hören" (October 17-31) with a collection of live-drawings by your scribe from concerts of former editions of Enjoy Jazz and a greater number of European Jazz Festivals and venues as Beljazz (BE), Bimhuis Amsterdam (NL), Jazzfest Berlin (GER), JazzArt Festival Katowice (PL), Jazzdor (Berlin/Strasbourg) (GER/F), Jazz Festival Aarhus (DK) Kongsberg (NO), Ljubljana (SI), Münster (GER), Oslo (No), Skopje (MK) and Trondheim (NO), Jazztopad Wroclaw (PL), Punkt Festival Kristiansand (No), Unerhört Zürich (CH).

Together with Cristina Nan of Tandem Art Space, Nadja Anima Peter of Livekultur Mannheim, both regular Enjoy Jazz partners, organized a blind date at Reiss-Engelhorn Musea in Mannheim with live drawing as integral part of the music. Peter and Nan set it up as a musical meeting without any prior musical structuring (except choice of the line-up), in short, a real time creation situation with musicians that did not play in this line-up before. As I was involved in the blind date meeting with simultaneously projected live drawing (stage screen), I will leave the review to my Mannheim colleague Martin Vögele, who wrote about it in daily newspaper Mannheimer Morgen.

I have to confess that I was equally impressed and surprised how elegantly the five musicians, bassist Robert Landfermann, guitarist Riaz Khabirpour, oud player Fadhel Boubaker, drummer Christian Huber and percussionist Peter Hinz, made their way into more than an hour- long captivating music based on an exciting process of on the spot, real time creation in this challenging combination of instrumental possibilities. Not any strained moment and no loosing track but an outpouring flow of festive music due to the solid understanding and versatile playing of Robert Landfermann, one of the most in demand German bassist (Pablo Held, Christian Lillinger etc.). Two drummers always open up the music and Huber and Hinz did it in a colorful and consonantal way. And, as a good surprise, the interaction of oud and electric guitar turned out as a pleasurable unique affair here. Here is Vögele's reflective account on it. "When participants of a blind date -an appointment with strangers -... are obviously sympathetic and feel they will have a lot to say to each other, it is a good starting position. Sensitive contemporaries then do not fall into the house with the door, but carefully explore the nature of the connection that exists among each other and could continue to grow. This is what happens in the "Blind Date" series. ... Tunis meets Mannheim," is the motto of this musical rendezvous, which shows "the international in the local" in the festival, as artistic director Rainer Kern said in his announcement."

Here Vögele describes the process of connecting to and finding each other:

"The first tones move slowly while the five musicians curiously, brisk and alert move around each other. Soon they find and connect, build up a common tension and language, and after just a few minutes these creators seem like confidants, who understand each other blindly."

And here is Vögele's account on the drawing part in connection with the music making:

"Music practically always and inevitably evokes mental images, but here a very concrete artistic synesthesia takes place. Because, Henning Bolte, jazz journalist from Amsterdam, accompanies the concert— and draws what he hears. What he creates with chalk, fountain pen, marker pen, pocket-knife and glue stick (or with the help of a concert card) is transferred onto the stage wall via simultaneous projection. This creates associative, constantly evolving abstract forms, surfaces and pattern networks that skillfully interact with the music. By the way, the Bolte exhibition Live Drawings— Spuren Zu Hören was running at Tandem Art Space in Heidelberg until October 31st.

In the live drawings, music finds graphic expression that is lyrical and intricately chiseled, but at the same time -as a high contrast—is free- spirited dynamic with a powerful groove. It knows how to develop a psychedelically reactive power with hypnotically curved ostinati and has a downright (post) rock density of energy everywhere. Landfermann, Khabirpour, Huber, Hinz, Boubaker and Bolte prove to be congenially cooperating partners in these almost 90 minutes of audiovisual improvisation—a first date made to measure." (Mannheimer Morgen, Wednesday, October 28th, 2020)

Allen Blairman

Drummer Allen Blairman (Pittsburg, 1940) came to Europe to play with Albert Ayler in the late '60s and he has stayed since then in the southwest of Germany. He then recorded with pianist/vibraphonist Karl Berger from Heidelberg, amongst others, who later, together with Ornette Coleman, founded the Woodstock Workshop. The recording with Karl Berger, vocalist Ingrid Sertso and bassist Peter Kowald was produced by Manfred Eicher for the Calig Label. Other important partners were other US-immigrants as Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy. He played an extended concert together with saxophonist Olaf Schönborn and vibraphonist Claus Kiesselbach, a mallet specialist (once student of Tom van der Geld, who taught for many years at Mannheim conservatory). Blairman, now an octogenarian, is still a driving drummer in the track of melody. It was a pure pleasure to join them on their path through a multitude of known and less known evergreen tunes. Giving those tunes shape in a straight and colorful way they unlocked endlessly rolling dynamics.

Sokratis Sinopoulos

The lyra is a tiny three stringed bowed folk instrument (spike violin) with a special sensuous ethereal sound. Its aura is almost impossible to emulate electronically. Greek musician Sokratis Sinopoulos is intimately connected to the instrument getting more widely known through his collaboration with Greek singer Maria Farantouri and US-American saxophonist Charles Lloyd. He has formed his own Greek group comprising pianist Yann Keerim, bassist Dimitri Tsekouras and drummer Dimitris Emmanouil. It is conceptually a piano trio extended by the lyra from where Sinopoulos has developed his very own approach to magnify his instrument's sound possibilities. He put attractive turns and motifs from Greek folk music in a lyrical, grooving or rocking piano trio bedding to unfold and extend. This led to a highly driven and surging up and down, above which the curved etherical sound of Sinopoulos' lyra raised, lamented, triumphed or laughed. It took from folk but was not folk. Sinopoulos transported and projected the folk elements into a rocking bedding emphasizing and being emphasized. This can trigger an exhilarating fun fair Hochgefühl or just a little moment of happiness. In two sets, Sinopoulos offered his audience this kind of uplifting experience combined with lingering, wandering or daydreaming variations conjuring a multitude of moods for his audience. Simple and effective, it rocked, entwined with precious ornamentation.

Daniel Erdmann, the awardee

The annual ceremony and concert of the SWR Jazz Award, always taking place at Das Haus in Ludwigshafen, is a fixed component of Enjoy Jazz. SWR stands for Südwestrundfunk, a fusion of regional public Radio/TV stations founded 1998. It is the oldest German jazz award, endowed with ?? 15.000, brought into being in 1981 by internationally renowned and influential German jazz organizer, producer and writer Joachim Ernst Berendt (1922-2001). He built up the department of the SWF in Baden-Baden in the early 50s and held one of the longest radio directorship tenures (1950-1987). After 40 years the prestigious award shows an impressive list of awardees.

Daniel Erdmann's career has been shaped by a remarkable variety of multiple European collaborations, mostly independent from his place of work or his residence. Presently, he lives and works primarily in France, (while formerly his basis was Berlin where he had collaborations with musicians from Switzerland such as Samuel Rohrer), with musicians such as Vincent Courtois, the extraordinary Das Kapital with French drummer Edward Perraud and Danish-French guitarist Hasse Poulsen , in the ensemble of bassist Claude Tchamitchian , the trio of cellist Vincent Courtois together with French-English tenorist Robin Fincker and his own mixed English- French-German group Velvet Revolution with vibraphonist Jim Hart and violinist Théo Ceccaldi (and occasionally drummer Cyril Atef), which released its albums on Hungarian label BMC. Erdmann is also a member of Aki Takase's brilliant quartet Japanic with turntablist DJ Illvibe, bassist Johannes Fink and drummer Dag Magnus Narvesen, one of Berlin's excellent intergenerational groups. These 'mixed' backgrounds seem almost constitutional for his musical practice and his personal life. The line-ups you can experience him with, are unusual and natural; the concepts he works from, the directions he takes, are keen, witty, captivating and full of elegance and inherent beauty.

Erdmann (what's in a name!) distinguished himself in his playing (and composing) by mild dedication, clarity, grounded lightness, slight heaviness, thoughtful audacity, sharp melodicism, burning assertiveness with cool about turns, disarming alienations and subtle surrealism. In his playing you could find a synthesis of old school dignity, new wave lightness, prudence and unfeigned playfulness. These characteristics came to the fore in the concert after a short easy-going and to the point award ceremony, first in duo with Berlin's grande dame, pianist Aki Takase, and then with his group Velvet Revolution. Both turned out as a highly sophisticated and uplifting enjoyment. Erdmann's soprano playing in the duet with Takase, in particular, revealed as a revelation. Une soirée divertissante d'un surréalisme étonnamment tempéré avec l'aspect mélodique particulièrement animé, agile et imaginatif.

Katherine Zyabluk

Jazz and related fields are characterized by an extensive search for tonal expressions in the spur of the moment, in the line of exploring the depths of felt traditions and rich, ingenious and inspiring compositional frameworks, as well as shining regional and individual colorings. Artistic director Rainer Kern is an eager and alert discovering and connecting spirit. Year after year he comes up with unique, surprising, beautiful finds—in good company with a lot of mainstays and proven cornerstones. Very often, he programs discoveries not only as a spot on the overall painting, but as an extended trace in texture and shape, thereby mining new entrances and exits, and, when doing it, he does not shy away from (letting his audiences experience and learn about) the unknown. He became fascinated by Katherine Zyabluk (1999), a young musician originating from Kiev still studying in Kraków, Poland.

She manifested herself on a remarkable solo album, <>Borders Make You Grow<>, a few months ago. Here's from my recent review:

"When listening to the music of young Ukrainian pianist Katherine Zyabluk (1999) here, it gives a feeling of remote concentration connected to a special calmness underlying a tension of stasis and maneuverability. The music is with itself in an astonishing way lacking each sign of bravado or attempt to shine. It wears a kind of humble and serious monkish otherworldliness especially reflected in the piece "23 Ways to Forget Oneself." In this mode wonderful tunes enter from different sides or shine through, permeated with subliminal drama (as in the Ukrainian titled piece "Oy U Luzi, Ta Shche Y Pry Berezi") in its thoughtful mostly non-overtly confluent progression. There are exceptions though as the vibrating and blasting "Burn Platanus" and there are the contrasts of "Happy Interlude: Curcuma" and "Gloomy Interlude: Aleph" not to mention the final two excellent seven-minute pieces. It turns out that this music was created by Katherine Zyabluk with restricted means in the isolation, means-restricted solitude of her Covid-19-quarantine in April in a place near Kraków. It is a personally deep lived through musical manifestation of it."

Inviting her to perform a solo concert in this year's piano series was a bold move that indicated a high trust in the young musician and the audience.

Katharina Zyabluk took this invitation up as a gift, opening up an experiential space to bring in herself, her being and the music coming forth from it. She did it self-confidently, truthfully, full of playful grace, in a remarkable coexistence of being down-to-earth and wandering in higher spheres. In her almost 90 minutes set she took time and space to fully unfold her very own musical universe in a flight of sensuous presence and dreamy alertness, all the while also connecting verbally and with speaking eyes to her audience to set it, and keep it, on the trace of hidden tales. Her gentle tenacity kept the music away from dissolving in well-shaped smooth turns. Instead, it prospered continuously on silver lines over darkly stamping grounds on a poetical musical rope, dancing, and shining on the unruly reality experiences of these days.

And then all of a sudden...

—-it was over. When November came closer, the number of infections increased massively nationwide, such that the united federal governments and the central government intervened by decreeing a nationwide complete lockdown for theatres, music venues, cinemas, museums, galleries among others. It came as a hard blow for a field that—like hotels—had put lots of effort and money into building and securing a safe surrounding for audiences and guests. I experienced that for almost three weeks during my stay in Heidelberg without any incident.

Although it was widely known and acknowledged that music venues and music events were no spreading spots, the measure was taken to reduce interaction between people and social gatherings still more drastically. All public activities of joyful, playful, inspiring, catalytic and cathartic pastime were forbidden from November 2 on for a whole month. The main argument for shutting culture events was that the public health department had lost control in relation to infection chains. As a consequence, there would be no clear evidence anymore, about which were relevant spreading places, and so a more general measure was inevitable. However, we talk about places with a considerable reduction of audiences, a reasonable hygiene concept and cooperative visitors. So, you could no longer visit a concert with 30 visitors, distance, masks, effective ventilation and disinfection but you could still spend your leisure time for consumption at large department stores such as Ikea. Or you could go to a church service with live music.

In some countries, such as Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, the shutdown was even more rigorous. In countries such as The Netherlands, it was less rigorous. Meanwhile it became clear that the measures slowed down the growth somehow, which is still on a too high level for the public health system. It turned out that a more or less rigorous shutdown might have helped in general, but it remains unclear what is the effect of closing down specific areas. Maybe/hopefully we will later learn something about it. Whatever, measures taken in a pandemic are to a certain extent based on political decisions. Those measures never can be fully adequate or logical from other viewpoints. For Germany, it was already clear (at the moment of writing this) that the shutdown measures will be extended and sharpened for another month. The festival's immediate course after the announcement of the measures to postpone the rest of the concerts to December turned out to be a futile hope.

Hence, it could have been a political choice, too, to keep certain small-scale venues open for their exemplary value of living alongside the virus. It would be a privilege that must be earned by proving its effects. It might still be relevant for the future, considering that the whole of next year will still be dominated by the virus in the sense of a still more complex situation—a challenge for mathematical model makers. I guess that large scale meetings and music festivals will not be possible until the fall, unless there will be a high degree of health control and personal privileges. It would be great if this is a too pessimistic forecast.

Fazit

Enjoy Jazz 2020 made a mark by laying down a line of high standard, exciting daily live concerts. Limited audience numbers felt a bit strange in the beginning but very soon turned out to be even a pleasant atmospheric thing with a high complicity factor. Being involved in the continuation of arts and live music made the concerts an extra intense experience. Moreover, this edition was more than a 'nevertheless' kind of thing. The program dug deeper traces, opened up prospering musical horizons, and drew new lines that will be followed up, a core task (Kerngeschäft) of a festival. For this my gratitude goes to the stoic and persistent staff of Enjoy Jazz and artistic director Rainer Kern, to the staff of Tandem Art Space in Heidelberg and Cristina Nan, to the staff of Livekultur Mannheim and Nadja Anima Peter, and, last but not least, to all passionate musicians for providing moving soulful vibrations.

Photo Tania Giannouli Book Of Lost Songs: Manolis Manousakis, Tania Giannouli, Maria Pia De Vito, Michele Rabbia, Guido De Flaviis,

Special thanks to Bernd Müller-Jacquier for inspiring talks.

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