Future Sounds: A Conversation with the Next Generation of German Jazz

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Three Fall is Lutz Streun on Saxophone, Til Schneider on Trombone, and Sebastian Winne on drums.

(© Three Fall)

Television cameras, an impressive lightshow and crystal-clear sound greeted visitors to the Leverkusen Jazz Days in 2009. But that is not what impressed the audience at Germany's largest jazz festival. It was the young trio, Three Fall, that had the music fans delighted.

Saxophone, trombone and drums; an unusual combo took to the stage at the biggest jazz festival in Germany. The trio Three Fall (Lutz Streun, Til Schneider, Sebastian Winne) are a young band from Cologne. Winners of the 2008 Futuresounds competition held at the Festival, the band had earned their place on the main stage supporting internationally known jazz musicians.

The Futuresounds competition is an invitational event in which young, upcoming bands based in Germany play a series of gigs. A jury and the audience decide on the winner in the course of the week-long Leverkusen Jazz Days. Apart from the opportunity to play on the main stage the following year, the winners also give a live performance which is recorded and gain access to some of the movers and shakers of the jazz world who help them take their first steps in the music industry.

Young Germany caught up with band leader and saxophonist Lutz Streun to ask him how Germany's jazz landscape looks to a young band at the vanguard of the music.

Interviews or features about jazz are full of historical references and long-dead musicians. Is jazz stuck in the past?

I see that perception as a big problem. With jazz, people immediately think of antiquated music. The opposite is the case. No one wants to listen to the old stuff. If you play it occasionally that’s cool, but actually jazz is about creating. It’s not a genre but an attitude toward music. The attitude has to be to stay fresh, create and bring in new influences. For instance we [Three Fall] have hip hop elements and beats – it’s really important to us to be fresh. However, we have a great respect for the jazz tradition and feel it’s important to know where jazz comes from and understand how it was created.

How do you see the spirit of creation reflected in jazz?

As I said, jazz is not really a music style, it is a spirit and a spirit can be taken into every age. Miles Davis, for instance - one of the great jazz musicians - pushed the envelope and tried to change things. In the 40s he created cool jazz, in the 50s bebop and free jazz, while in the 70s they did fusion jazz and rock. This spirit of trying to change remains. That’s the nice thing, jazz has alot to do with expressing your environment. Your environment always changes and you try to bring these changes into the music.

Jazz music sales account for barely 2 percent of the overall music sales in Germany. Is it true that jazz is elitist?

The problem lies on both sides - the listeners and the musicians. To listen to jazz one has to be patient – really sit down, open you ears and listen. I think that as a society we don’t take the time to do so anymore. For example, if you compare football from 15 years ago and now it’s so much faster. The same applies to television and the internet.The other side of the coin are the musicians themselves. Jazz is difficult to play. It requires a real mastery of your instrument. This leads many jazz musicians to focus on improving their playing and consequently forget their music. It creates a bubble in which jazz musicians get stuck in, just working on improving their playing skills. That’s the biggest problem because after all, you play for an audience.

What kind of reactions do you receive to your music?

Often, after concerts, people come to me and say “I usually don’t listen to jazz. I don’t know anything about jazz, but I really enjoyed it.” To me it is even more important if someone doesn’t know anything about jazz because that means that they don’t think in structures about what a genre is supposed to sound like. People start to think “Oh, it’s jazz -- it’s intellectual -- I won’t understand it anyway”, and get nervous. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing to understand. Just listen to it. That’s my main motivation, to transport jazz into every ear. If a three year old says “I like your concert” it means just as much as to me as coming from a jazz professor. After all, music is about emotions and one persons reaction counts just as much as the next ones.

You said that jazz is about searching. How does that search look for Three Fall?

From the outset we were on a search. Three Fall plays without a bass or a piano. Usually you always have a bass and if you don’t, you have a piano. These instruments are important in anchoring the music and providing chord structures. From the outset we were confronted with this challenge and we had to find out how to make our three instruments - saxophone, trombone and drums – work together. It was really interesting. We set out on a search and we are still on it.

You have been very successful in your search – after all, you won the Futuresounds competition. How do you explain your success?

Our music uses many moods. We draw on landscapes, colors, worldly events, emotions and reflect them in our music. That means that it’s accessible to everybody, not only the jazz world. We are not just playing for ourselves, but for everybody and we tell stories that everybody can relate to.

Can you give an example of a mood in one of your songs?

For example the song Fünf nach 4 (Five past 4). I had a time where I really wanted to compose but I didn’t have any ideas. I even scheduled time for composing, but nothing, absolutely nothing was happening. I was really frustrated. I began to think I wasn’t the musician I thought I was. And then, one morning here in Cologne, at five past four in the morning, I woke up. I had a melody in my ear. I had no idea where it was coming from, but I wrote it down immediately. The song is dedicated to that moment at five past four in the morning. I combined the melody, the frustration that I had been feeling and the time and had the song.

What’s your attitude towards mainstream artists who use jazz elements such as Jamie Cullum, St. Germain and Bossanova?

It’s super music. I have seen St. Germain in concert and liked them. Jazz draws on so many influences and, in turn, influences other styles. For instance, Nils Petter Molvaer [Jazz trumpet player] was the first to use these fat drum and bass beats in his jazz, which was totally revolutionary. The quality of the music is the most important criteria, but at a point one has to stop thinking in structures and genres – in the end it’s all just music. It doesn’t matter if it’s jazz or not. I dislike the whole idea of pigeonholing – it’s just a bad excuse. At the end of the day labels and genres are just human attempts to structure music.

You just released Bomboclive! (Konnex Record Label). Are you touring with the new album?

No, we are not on a special album promotion tour. It was important to have Bomboclive! ready for the biggest jazz festival in Germany [Leverkusener Jazz Tage], but basically the whole year is a tour for us. Generally we play two gigs every month – dates and venues, as well as our new album are on our website.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Source: Young Germany