Tuesday night now .. Today was social! Earlier, after lunch near Templehof with Stefanie — who was next to me on the plane last week — I hustled over to a nearby school to watch Tanja, who used to work at the jazz station in Berlin, teach back to back vocal jazz classes. Tanja’s employer Jazzschule rents classroom space in a multi-building, artsy, garden-y commune yes a commune that dates from the 1970s. It’s called ufaFabrik Berlin and physically, it includes a beautiful grocery store, a cafe, one or two theaters/performance spaces, and housing which I did not see. Most of the buildings are low to the ground or slightly below. Today for a special event, friendly Buddhist monks were hanging out in the leafy pathways and courtyards. And in an amazing coincidence, tonight at the club A Trane, I discovered the jazz fan next to me had been an architect and designed the buildings of ufaFabrik. He said the residents now include a second generation.
Here’s Tanja.
Here she is counting off the tempo for one of her students. Great finger snap!
These classes are focused and fun to watch. The singers are working standards and the band was good. And finally at sunset here is the former Tempelhof Airport. Now it’s a park. I’m told that Berlin has decided to wait five years before developing it, and many hope the city will never develop it at all. People ride bikes on the erstwhile runways etc. It’s green space under open sky!