Category Archives: Darmstadt

My report about Gender and Identity in Jazz at the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt is now online at downbeat.com

It’s posted, as of last week, with this photo …

Wolfram Knauer and Sherrie Tucker (U of Kansas)

Wolfram Knauer directs the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, and Sherrie Tucker is American Studies Professor, University of Kansas. Happily, they opened the conference. I love these additional photos, also by Wilfried Heckmann.

Martin Niederauer photo by Wilfried Heckmann

Viewing this image, Martin Niederauer (Male Hegemony in Jazz) explained his gesture: “…[C]ompeting against each other and trying to establish hierarchies does not push the competitors away from each other. Rather, they are getting closer and are tied to each other.” Martin is a scholar at University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Institute for Music Sociology.

Based at the University of Pittsburgh, Yoko Suzuki has  interviewed  dozens of women  – especially saxophonists – about their New York jam session experiences. Yoko delivered some conclusions from her research, then she jammed in the ancient, lovely stone cellar below the Jazzinstitut, the largest public jazz collection in Europe.

Yoko Suzuki at the jam session

You can see Wilfried Heckmann’s jazz photography at Jazz-vision.de. And read the full downbeat.com story here.

Here’s my parting shot of an office in the library. I like the vibe.

And this is my shot of an office at the Jazzinstitut ..

And note this: TODAY Oct 26 is the release date of the complete Life and Art of Jutta Hipp from Be! Jazz Records (Germany). Thanks to  presenter and saxophonist Ilona Haberkamp, who teaches at Ernst-Barlach-Gymnasium, Castrop-Rauxel, for her dedicated work about pianist JH, who would be 90 this year.

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Talks and music at Jazzinstitut Darmstadt

 

Yoko Suzuki from University of Pittsburgh jamming at Darmstadt
On the right, Yoko Suzuki from University of Pittsburgh jamming at Darmstadt .. Nicole Johanntgen on the left

Freitag, 2. Oktober

Michael Kahr of Graz, Austria, spoke about Chromatcism and Identity in Clare Fischer’s Music

Yoko Suzuki from Pittsburgh on Gendering Musical Sound in Jazz Saxophone Performance

Ilona Haberkamp of Frondenberg on (Jutta) Hipp Style or Adaptation?

Martin Niederauer of Wien, Austria, on Male Hegemony in Jazz

Joy Ellis and Adam Osmianski from London on Women in the Jazz Jam

Christopher Dennison from NY on One-Armed Ball Players: The Language of Homosexuality in Jazz

Jenna Bailey from Canada and the UK on The Role of Gender in Ivy Benson’s All Girl Band

Samstag, 3. Oktober

Sherrie Tucker from Kansas on A Conundrum Is Women-in-Jazz

John Murph from DC on Exploring the Queer Overtones of Sun Ra’s Outer Space Ways

Christian Broeckling of Berlin on “Authentic Lesbian as I am …” Aspects of Gender, Marginalisation and Political Protests in Life and Work of Irene Schweizer

Nicolas Pillai of Birmingham, UK, on Watching Men Play: the Erotics of the Hollywood Film

Great conference! Everybody who presented stayed for the whole thing. Everyone listened to each other! Jazzinstitut Darmstadt rocks!

Jazzinstitut Darmstadt conference

The laundromat near my hotel is behind an orchid shop
The laundromat near my hotel is behind an orchid shop

Breakfast! Laundry! Conference in a civic building named for JFKennedy. Presentations about Gender and Identity in Jazz. Among four topics this afternoon were Sexual Desire, Eroticism, and the Construction of the Jazz Tradition (that’s one) and “Alright for a girl” and Other Jazz Myths about two British saxophonists, generations apart. (Note to Sally:  I told the group about the Ina Rae Hutton play we saw recently in NY.) Visit to Jazzinstitut Darmstadt tonight followed by beautiful dinner. Eight more papers tomorrow and I am really looking forward to all.