Bright sounds abound at third edition of New Colours Jazz Festival

Tim Dickeson
Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Tim Dickeson reports back from the third edition of the New Colours Jazz Festival. Based in Gelsenkirchen in the former heart of industrial Germany, the festival continues to refine its position as one of the most interesting and innovative new festivals on the European scene

Pablo Caminero Trio – Photo by Tim Dickeson

The end of the industrial era in the Ruhr area and in particular the coal industry, left many sites and buildings needing to be re-purposed leading to many new ventures using the old infrastructure. It also saw the area moving from one of the richest to the poorest in Germany.

Festival organisers Bernd Zimmermann and Susanne Pohlen have become experts in searching out interesting and unusual locations and using them as ad hoc venues for concerts during the festival and also for their series of monthly concerts during the year.

This year festival concerts were staged in two former mine buildings, a former Co-op supermarket, a castle, a cinema, a school, the foyer of an opera house and a former Church.

This mix of unusual locations and well-chosen music is what makes this festival so interesting.

Unfortunately I missed the opening two concerts of the festival due to a flight delay but colleagues told me that Daniel Herskedal’s solo show and Australian band The Vampires were both excellent. The venue was the former pit head of the Wilhelmine Victoria mine that is now a performing arts centre.

Another former pit head building, the Nordsternturm tower, is a very popular venue for the festival. The 17^th floor of this tower houses what remains of the winding gear that shuttled the miners up and down the mine shaft to the coal seams nearly a kilometre below.

In amongst the now redundant machinery a stage is built and 40 or so chairs laid out for a concert featuring Luciano Biondini (accordion) and Klaus Falschlunger (sitar - pictured above). The musical juxtaposition of east and west was thrilling and set in this location with the mechanical equipment towering above us made it even more special.

The Kunstraum Norten (a former Co-op supermarket) is now an art gallery. Two concerts were held at this venue that was showing an excellent exhibition by the painter Rainer Kleinschmidt. Ashia Grezesik (cello, voice) who performs as Bison Rouge, mixes her poems and stories with music and loops channelling pop, rock and jazz into her unique and captivating soundscape.

The festival features a children’s show which was also held at this venue and featured Ensemble Kreuzvier - Jacques Wery (piano, trombone, percussion, guitar & voice), Clara Flaksman (piano, viola, handpan, percussion, vocals) & Johanna Risse (violin, percussion, piano, vocals).

The show mixed music and dance with the performers seamlessly swapping between instruments whilst singing beautiful three-part harmonies that kept both young and old enthralled for the entire show.

In an effort to ‘spread the word’ about the festival two concerts were staged at complimentary venues. The Schauburg Cinema in the heart of Gelsenkirchen is a ‘classic’ cinema from 1929 with sweeping staircases, walkways and a myriad of doors. The cinema still has the large area in front of the screen where a band would have accompanied the silent films. This made the perfect setting for Cologne band Foxl, a guitar-based jazz rock band who play a modern type of ambient ‘Krautrock’. Led by Rodrigo Lopez Klingenfuss their music is spacey and hypnotic without being repetitive or boring. The cinema screen was, of course perfect for their back projection imagery.

Sax player Roger Hanschel performed with the string quartet ‘String Thing’ in the foyer of the Musiktheatre Im Revier (MIR) which opened in 1959 and at that time was the most modern and innovative opera house in Germany. This was an excellent set with plenty of free improvisation from both parties - Hanschel has a love of Indian music and that showed through both in the writing and playing. Nicola Kruse (violin) and Ingmar Meissner (viola) were outstanding and along with Gunther Tiedemann (cello) and Jens Peizunka (bass) this collaboration takes the idea of ‘Chamber Jazz’ to a whole new level.

The main venue for the festival is Schloss Horst, a renaissance manor house from the 16C that has a magnificent glass hall built out from the oldest wall of the building that hosts the concerts.

Over two nights at this venue there were four shows featuring; Yumi Ito, Girls in Airports, Dock in Absolute and the Pablo Caminero Trio. The highlight of these shows was without doubt the Pablo Caminero Trio featuring Moisés P. Sanchez (piano), Paquito Gonzáles (drums) and Pablo Caminero on double bass. The trio play a heady mixture of flamenco, classical and jazz written and orchestrated by Caminero and his sublime bass playing. Sanchez was immense on piano, playing flawlessly all night - passionate solos, strong and soulful ensemble playing and he was beautifully minimalist when bass and drums took the lead. His almost classical intro into ‘Alcazar de Sevilla’ was stunning.

The final show of the festival was held at the Heilig Kreuz Kirche which was deconsecrated in 2007 and has been an arts centre since 2022. The festival love to end with a party atmosphere and that was more than provided by Club Des Belugas (pictured above) one of the leading Nu Jazz bands in Germany. Anna-Luca and Maya Fadeeva provided glamour and soulful vocals and the evening was a sell-out success - a great end to what had been an excellent festival.

The New Colours Jazz Festival has certainly made its mark among the myriad of other cultural events in this sprawling city - the organisers have built an audience based on excellent programming and by their innovative choice of venues which respect the city’s past to create a sustainable future for the festival.

Listening List

Biondini & Falschlunger

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xE0DIpEgLo - Once in A Blue Moon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmGkQDjvorU - Incredible World

Bison Rouge

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nusS8n_cU8E - Berlin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ct5GvK_LK0 - Cathedral of Trees

Ensemble Kreuzvier

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaa9IBAT5c0 - WasserWerke

Foxl

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-5ugxiNpjQ - Ballade

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQYyOJsXy9g - Bodyless