Clara Wedel Quartet at Jazzclub Hürth

Clara Wedel, Simon Pesch, Gabriel Spindler, Jiaxiang Jack Wang
Jazzclub Hürth
Hürth, Germany
August 14, 2026

Vegetation had yellowed in the farmland and meadows huddled around Hürth, with greenery blanched to a sandy color by successive summer heatwaves. Shady forests were off-limits after local politicians urged the public to cut the wildfire risk by staying out of the tinder-dry woods. A basement jazz club offered a cool place to shelter on another blistering day. It also offered four young musicians a cool chance to swap sunlight for spotlights and soak up some applause from an encouraging crowd.

Jazzclub Hürth is decorated with the typical accoutrements found in most other small-scale German venues. There are black curtains behind its low stage and small, circular tables with flickering LED-tealights. Photos of Befreundete (befriended) locations are glued onto a hand-made poster, while beat-up instruments are screwed into the brickwork. That includes violins and trombones, the tools favored by 21-year-old Clara Wedel, who led the evening's program alongside three befreundete musicians: Pianist Simon Pesch, bassist Gabriel Spindler and drummer Jiaxiang Jack Wang. The band members are currently sharpening their skills at the nearby Cologne University of Music and Dance.

The youngsters paced the cellar's beige-tiled floor clutching folders of sheet music before ambling onto the cramped stage. Safe-choice songs inside those folders provided a solid start to show. They began with a Latin-feel version of "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise." Next came Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday," where Spindler left big gaps between phrases in his confident solo. The third piece was "The Girl from Ipanema." Wedel stuck to violin for this initial trio of tunes, taking the first turn to improvise her melody-driven solos.

More standards helped the group get back in the swing of things later, after a twenty-minute interval. "My Favorite Things" was perhaps the most ambitious choice on the setlist, kicked off with a long introductory violin passage where Wedel displayed her early training in classical music. Things loosened up with "Too Close for Comfort," featuring a twisting and spiraling solo by Pesch. The jumpy and bumpy Dizzy Gillespie number "Woody 'n' You" gave Wang a spell in the limelight. The drummer is an idiosyncratic and unpredictable player. His solo earned the night's loudest applause.

The highlight of the night involved three original compositions that revealed deeper insights into Wedel's artistic personality. "Song for Rudy" was a cheeky swing tune. "Song for Eddie" provided another happy, hopping melody delivered via Wedel's trombone. Then came "Song for My Mother," a warm-throated ballad that seemed to reach upwards like a child's imploring arms.

The club in Hürth traces its history back to 1986, more than two decades before these four musicians came howling into the fast-warming world. It is one of several volunteer-run venues in Germany that share a scuffed and dusty aesthetic, much like the surrounding landscape on this evening in August. But the cellar is a cool space that offers cool opportunities for players to play and audiences to listen. This talented and Befreundete quartet filled it with familiar melodies, swing feeling and an old-fashioned sense of fun.