Jazz in Germany - The 80s

The 80s

In the 1980s, the jazz audience, as well as the jazz scene, split in many different directions in West Germany. There were forms which included traditional repertory, the various currents of free jazz and fusion music, a turning to Neobop, but also style elements that hinted at more modern styles, and neo-classical jazz. In Cologne, there was a strong initiative for Jazz, founding the initiative "Kölner Jazz Haus" (Cologne Jazz House), from which projects such as the Kölner Saxophon Mafia (Cologne Saxophone Mafia) emerged. In Frankfurt, a whole series of guitarists of international significance emerged, among them Torsten de Winkel, who should later appear on the world's stages with the likes of Pat Metheny and Joe Zawinul. And a new interest awakened for the work of Big Bands. Jazz arrangers such as Peter Herbolzheimer raised this genre in Germany to an international level. New venues were opened in mid-sized cities. Due to the large number of different jazz styles, such concerts were poorly attended, especially in the larger cities.

In East Germany, the development was more clearly arranged. In the 1980s, there was a greater exchange between jazz musicians from West and East Germany. If the cooperation took place within the borders of the GDR, normally a non-German musician was also invited to give this event an international complexion. Economically jazz musicians in the GDR lived in comparatively secure or prosperous circumstances, because they worked in an environment of subsidized culture, and unlike their western colleagues did not need to follow the directives of the free market economy. In addition to a comparatively wide Dixieland scene in the area and mainstream American-style jazz, free improvisational music developed in a way that Fred Van Hove (later relativated) spoke misguidedly of the, "Promised Land of Improvised Music".