Jazzherbst Krefeld achieved world-class level with Bauer Bauer Narvesen

Trio Bauer Bauer Narvesen in Krefeld
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Jazz autumn reaches world class level

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Celebrated trio: (from left) Dag Narvesen, Conny and Matthias Bauer
Photo: Lena Panzer

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Krefeld Trombonist Conny Bauer was a big number in the GDR. His idiosyncratic style makes him a solitaire in the world of jazz. The audience experienced an outstanding evening with Conny and Matthias Bauer and Dag Narvesen.

“We play for our audience. I would like to listen to what I play myself when I sit there, ”says trombonist Conny Bauer. He was once one of the free jazz pioneers in the GDR – more than five decades later he was now a trio-cast guest at the Krefeld Jazzherbst in the theater. What is different today than then? In response, Conny Bauer provides a sober statement: “I would say I play better today than I used to”.

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Conny Bauer, this trombonist with a style of playing that is so idiosyncratic that it has already been given the technical term “Conradism” in expert circles, has his younger brother, bassist Matthias Bauer, by his side that evening. The much younger Norwegian Dag Magnus Narvesen is on the drums.

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A contradiction is immediately resolved: Here each musician plays completely freely for himself because – as in “normal” combo jazz – not everyone is linked by a more or less binding set of rules of rhythm or harmony. But there is a different, intuitive togetherness on a higher level.

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Bauer’s endless stream of air during the break competes with his flow of ideas, which also never runs dry. Which in the case of this ingenious instrument master often seems archaically grounded and never cerebral or aloof. More than if there was an infinite amount to tell from a huge life experience. The younger brother Matthias Bauer plucks and strokes the bass so that it sounds sonorous, but also in such a way that a lot of chamber music subtlety nourishes the dialogue, even trialogue, at eye level. Dag Magnus Narvesen uses subtle and finest sound actions against it, which sometimes flash like spray mist over the wave peaks of the communicative oscillation.

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But there is also a strong point in this process of searching together. Mind you: Everything the three of them play in the two sets is created completely spontaneously without prior compositional arrangements. Conny Bauer attached great importance to this in the conversation after the concert.

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Concerts like these are rarely visited today as rituals of aesthetic resistance, as it was once in the GDR free jazz scene in the 1960s. Conny Bauer pointed out the difference: “At that time, many young people at our concerts sought refuge from being nagged in their heads. The newspapers wanted to determine what people had to think. ”Today something like that simply stands for the highest art on a world-class level. And opposite this, the Krefeld audience that evening was well trained in the art of listening – and applauded enthusiastically for new horizons.

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With another pioneer of free jazz “made in Germany”, the Krefeld jazz autumn is entering its home straight: On Monday, December 6th, the Berlin pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach will meet the saxophonist Rudi Mahall. Again we can look forward to the drummer Dag Magnus Narvesen, who will also enrich this trio cast under the working title “Winterreise 2021”.

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