Barbara Dennerlein

Before her first concert in Ascona Barbara Dennerlein was interviewed for a newspaper article that we depict here:

"Barbara Dennerlein's dance" on her instrument

Barbara Dennerlein's love for the Hammond organ awoke at young age, and this was the beginning of her unexampled career. She counts to the big events of JazzAscona 2016 and stays for two nights, today, Friday 24 (9.30, Jazz Club Casino) for the "Hammond Night", with young talented Simon Oslander among others, and on the same stage tomorrow, Saturday 25, 7.45 in a duo performance.

Besides jazz improvisations and experiments - that she also performs on pipe organs and integrates in the jazz ambiance, or sometimes joins with synthesizers - she is at home also in group situations (she replaces the bass by her organ pedals, her speciality), symphonic orchestras, but also solo or, better said, in intimate togetherness with her Hammond.

JazzAscona 2016, almost a debut...

Even if I have been here several years ago "irregularly" (smiles) - I replaced a colleague last-minute - we can talk of an official debut this year. I will play with an excellent Swiss drummer, Pius Baschnagel. It is a wonderful collaboration for me, a matching feeling. I am excited to play with him...

You did not start as a pianist but are organist straight from the beginning...

At age  11 I began to play organ. The encounter with this instrument was a kind of positive shock that touched my soul. I love the piano, the bass, the synthesizer, I love many instruments, but if I cannot use my feet for playing I miss inspiration for the rest of my body.

A fascinating definition of yours is "The Hammond organ is a band"...

That's right. The pedals are my bass, the keyboards are right for accompaniment as well as for solo tunes and provide an endless scale of sounds. If I play solo I feel completely independent.

You compare the performance with jazz dance.

Yes, because it includes hands and feet and runs through the whole body. It is a feeling of free expression, which is typical for jazz as well as for free movement that let us forget about what our feet exactly do. You let yourself being led somewhere without an exact plan. 

A unique dance, at least in terms of jazz on the pipe organ.

It is a moment of a personal and compositional challenge. The pipe organs differ a lot in their mechanics and particularly in their sounds. Concert halls often have a dry sound whereas cathedrals have a long lasting echo, like in the Cathedral of Ulm where I played recently. This motivates to create new sounds and to arrange them. 

Did anybody have a problem with "sacral" and "profane"?

No, I was never confronted by resistance. Churches open their doors more and more. Now I play approximately the half of my concerts on pipe organs. Sometimes I like to play both Hammond and pipe organ in the same concert which creates a special sound combination. 

Who ever had put his hands on a pipe organ's manuals wonders how you can make it swing.

It's true, there can be a delay between the key press and witnessing the tone. This means that I sometimes have to press the key a bit earlier. It's funny, sometimes I disturb my co-musicians because my movements don't seem to match to what they are hearing. I have learned to cope with these mechanical peculiarity. This is also a part of the dance I talked about. 

Your definition of jazz is "freedom from prejudices and discrimination".

This has to do with the reason why jazz came up at all, which is hard to understand for us Europeans. Freedom is the spiritual receptiveness that comes along with playing jazz, but it is also my personal access to music. If I was greedy for money I certainly would not have chosen jazz - I have rejected important contracts in my career for my musical freedom. Today, often business goes first, but art and improvisation are at home in the freedom of expression and not in the question "how much can I sell?"