An A to Z of the International Jazz Festival Münster 2025

This is a brief, highly subjective (and not always completely serious) set of personal impressions of a great festival which happens right at the beginning of the year (*)

A is for audience. I can’t help wanting to start this short guide to the festival by singling out something very special: the palpable loyalty and the trust which Fritz Schmücker has built up during the time – almost four decades – that he has been running this festival. So, to start with the people of Münster is, as the great Heinrich Böll once wrote, ‘neither intentional nor accidental, but unavoidable.’

A is also for “ausverkauft” (sold out). The word often comes up when people talk about this festival. The strong demand for tickets means that the crowd in the theatre knows, yes KNOWS that they are lucky to be at the evening concerts in Theater Münster. Each night, virtually everyone stays right through to the end of the FOURTH set on the main stage. Jazz is about turning up for things, because – to state the obvious – if you’re not there, it’s been and gone. The Münster audience has learnt…and really gets that principle.

B is for British artists. It is an undisguisable fact: there is always latent and unmet demand for our jazz musicians in Northern Europe and there were two acts and four concerts at the Münster Festival, of which two were on the main stage. London-dwelling Jasper Hoiby was listed in the programme as representing Denmark, so these numbers could be tweaked to three acts and five concerts… numbers schmumbers….

The Freemonk quartet led by Xhosa Cole (sax) with Pat Thomas (piano), Tim Giles (drums) and Josh Vadiveloo (bass) genuinely appear to be on to a great idea using Monk tunes as jumping off points for free improvisation. I never stop marvelling at the places which Pat Thomas’s imagination can take the listener. The audience warmed to Tony Kofi’s duo with Alina Bzhezhinska. (See also K and T)

C is for Clarinet. This year’s festival had impressive quantities of grenadilla wood and silver keywork on show, each time in highly capable hands. The place of honour among them goes to 81 year old legend Gianluigi Trovesi, a firm favourite of the festival audience having been here on many previous occasions; he played a very well-received last set on the Friday night. There was also Louis Sclavis, both leading a sextet and solo, and another Frenchman Yom (See Y, and for my favourite clarinettist at this festival drop down to letter S. And for more clarinet-ing see also D and M).

D is for the Dominikanerkirche. The 1720s baroque church has been graced with a Gerhard Richter installation of a Foucault’s pendulum from 2018, and both Louis Sclavis on the Saturday and Tony Kofi on the Sunday were invited to do a solo perambulation and try out the echo and respond to the installation. (See also I)

E is for Emergency Pianist. Daniel Garcia was a hero – possibly the total hero – of the festival. He is a fabulous player, but also a deeply generous soul, and what the Germans call ‘ein toller Typ’ (disclosure: I have worked with him on the production of press releases and liner notes). Daniel Garcia led his “The Shape of Fire” (La forma del fuego) sextet for their German premiere as the first set on the main stage on the Saturday…and then (I’m told) set off to a restaurant for a well-deserved celebratory beer and a pizza…but was apparently obliged to leave the restaurant before the staff could serve him: he had been summoned back to the theatre where he proceeded to play an entire programme as a drop-in member of Jasper Hoiby’s trio with Jamie Peet. He was virtually sight-reading the whole show and absolutely shone. His ACT albums have been very well received, and his star has been rising. He turned forty just over a year ago, and, occasions like this show that it is going to shine ever brighter. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

F is for four things :

a)Fritz as in Schmücker

b) Four (as in decades) that he has spent as the…

c) …Force behind the….

d) …Festival.

“Even after four decades,” he writes in his preface to the programme book, “my desire for this wonderful music and for the discoveries that keep coming from it is unbroken.”

To state that his enthusiasm is infectious might sound like a platitude, but to me it feels like the key to reaching an understanding of what the festival is all about.

G is for guitar. The player who – as ever – left the deepest impression was Reinier Baas. He is a star of the European scene, and was in a couple of different projects. Some other writers in the press room were buzzing about his contribution to Nabou Claerhout’s quartet. I heard him in Daniel Garcia’s sextet and especially noted the total, masterful command of shaping a story in a solo, being at the heart of a full band intensity build. Sheer quality.

H is for Handel…and for Makiko Hirabayashi…and Hornpipe. This Copenhagen-based project led by the Japan-born pianist maybe needed a more intimate setting than the main stage, but it found a suitably extrovert vibe in the Hornpipe from Handel’s Water Music. (I need to thank my good friend Graham Rickson for being my human Shazam, and recognising the theme, even from a short WhatsApp voice message with me singing).

H is also for Heaven’s Ladder. The talk of the town is its hottest tourist attraction the “Himmelsleiter” on the tower of the Lamberti Church. I don’t think any of us in the press room actually went out to see it… maybe next time?

I is for Instagram. This is not strictly about the festival. At UK Jazz News we are as late to the Instagram party as it is possible to be, but our new colleague is helping to get the word out. I posted the loud and appreciative curtain call which Tony Kofi and Alina Bzhezhinska received at the end of their set, and I also caught Louis Sclavis at the Dominikanerkirche. The reels/ stories are HERE

J is for Jazz festivals which actually do have a lot of jazz. Great to be at a festival where nobody can moan about that…

K is for Tony Kofi. There is a particular joy about his musicianship, and I felt privileged to have the chance to spend a bit of time with him. He is absolutely buzzing about a new Lou Donaldson project which premieres at the end of this week. Festival Directors Take Note.

L is for Lampshades. The ceiling of Theater Münster has hundreds and hundreds of them. The first time I went I wondered who has the job of dusting them. These days they just seem quaint, a reminder of the economic miracle of the fifties, a curious allusion to the domestic space in a big theatre, a softening of architectural brutalism, a reminder that Goethe’s last words were “mehr Licht”. That’s enough prattling on about lampshades.

M is for both Benjamin Moussay (pianist) and Sarah Murcia (bassist). Together with Christophe Lavergne, they form the engine room of the Louis Sclavis quintet. I thought the best bits of the concert were when the trio broke loose.

N is for Nittendorf. A bit random, but let me explain. The winner of the Westphalian Jazz Prize, was pianist Clara Haberkamp. She did a superb trio set on the Sunday afternoon with a trio which includes Tord Gustafsen’s drummer Jarle Vespestad. This trio put out a very well-received album last summer… as the first ever jazz album to appear on a classical music label based in Nittendorf, a little village in the Regensburg district of Bavaria, TYXArt. It was longlisted for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. (Disclosure: I wrote the sleeve note). Clara Haberkamp is a player with astonishing, maybe even daunting harmonic and contrapuntal invention…who can also melt the heart with simplicity and directness of expression…and as an understated singer too

O is for Olga Reznichenko. She was here in the collaborative role, supporting singer/songwriter Anne Munka, but she is a very fine musician. The port city of Tagarog in Rostov Oblast’s loss is Leipzig’s gain. And Frank Graham’s great album review goes deeper than I have space or inclination to do here.

P is for Posaune, is what trombonists call their instrument, if like the miraculous Australian trombonist Shannon Barnett, they choose to make Northern Germany their home. She played one of those unforgettable solos at the start of a set on Friday by the band KIND (child). It started with ineffable lightness and gentleness and then built progressively in intensity and heft…all the way to the kind of huge sound with the solidity of a house that you can easily imagine putting your life savings into.

Q is for the queues…as in ,er, there weren’t any. Everyone seemed to get served with their interval drinks and salt or cheese pretzels with amazing speed. This place feels so well run. It’s those little things that make such a difference.

R is for Miron Rafajlovic. When I hear a musician whose character/voice/sound/ way of being are as strong and as fully-formed I start wondering why I haven’t heard the name before. Born in Sarajevo and now based in Spain, the trumpeter was part of Daniel Garcia’s sextet. I want to hear more of his playing as soon as possible.

S is for Shabnam Paraversh. In a clarinettist-heavy programme, she took the honours as far as I was concerned. I was mesmerised by the Iranian-born player, who gives a masterclass in tone production, intonation and dynamics with every note she plays on the instrument.

T is for Tim Giles. UK music is blessed with a drummer whose every touch has musicality and purpose. His dialoguing across the stage both in a duo and with Xhosa Cole and with Pat Thomas in the Freemonk quartet was exceptional. I always keep in mind that Tim had early and decisive encouragement from Stan Sulzmann, whose philosophy is ‘try something and you never know what might happen’.

U is for “UA/UK” which is how the Tony Kofi/ Alina Bzhezhinska duo was described in the programme. Слава Україні!

V is for Völkerverbindung. A German expression with the sense both of connecting countries and international understanding. The other festival in the region, Münsterland in October and November, does this big-time, and I enjoyed chatting to its director who is building a festival programme celebrating the music of Spain with some great names (See also Z)

W is for Tijn Wybenga. His 13-piece Brainteaser Orchestra with guest Theo Ceccaldi were the opening act. Hugely inventive and fast-thinking music, this writing and this vivaciousness are a potent combination. I loved the tune “Crest” which brilliantly takes a melodic line for a walk with some contrapuntal encounters along the way. I presume it is no accident that the bandleader chooses to wear the Django Bates orange hat. Definite kinship there.

X is for Xhosa Cole. The Birmingham saxophonist is making his mark, and the Freemonk project with a blueprint in the background from Hans Koller’s design desk is a super vehicle for him to live very convincingly at the borders of free improv and Monk-ishness.

Y is for Yom. Another clarinettist. He played some darkly minimal and meditative Philip Glass-y stuff with the Ceccaldi brothers…to which he couldn’t resist adding some raw squealing.

Z is for Zweiundzwanzig (Twenty-two). In his introductions, Fritz Schmücker liked to mention that no fewer than twenty-two countries were represented by the musicans playing. (See also V)

(*) The press room had no fewer than a dozen other writers. Some will give a lot more detail. We will be linking to their pieces.

Sebastian was the guest of International Jazz Festival Münster