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| Outside the Jazz Cafe POSK. I don't think that piano gets played. |
I have often been told about the delights of a European jazz audience by various bands that have toured the continent. I have had some experience in this myself when performing in Lithuania, and finding that the local jazz club was packed with people - many young people amongst them - which is quite different from a typical jazz club in the UK. This may have been that the jazz club in this particular town was the place to be, in a town that didn’t offer much else in the way of nightlife. In our country it’s difficult to attract large and new audiences, I think partly because of the lack of funding in jazz and possibly the comparably large amount of funding for other art forms which present competition for audience members. Whatever the reason, it’s notable to a lot of British Jazz musicians, that European audiences are surprisingly young and enthusiastic.
So our first “European” experience was in Hammersmith(!), at the Jazz Cafe POSK. This is a jazz club in the basement of what seems to be a Polish community centre, and it was such a busy and buzzing night, packed full with a fantastic audience.
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| A fan's photo |
The following weekend we set off for Germany, to play at a festival in Reutingen, which is a few miles south of Stuttgart. We had originally intended to be going to compete in a Young Jazz Ensemble award at the Burghausen jazz festival that week, but unfortunately hadn’t been invited to take part in the live rounds, which was a disappointment, but one of the emotional risks you take when entering a competition. Nevertheless, we still had a gig that I had arranged a while ago when planning our competition trip.
This concert was at Jazz in der Mitte, which is a popular club that is 50 years old this year, hence holding a festival to celebrate this anniversary. Sector7 was one of 3 British bands invited to play during the month-long festival, the others being Portico Quartet, and John Law’s trio.
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| Excellent service on BA |
We set off from Heathrow T5 at lunchtime on Saturday and arrived in South Germany with a bus ride to the jazz club to look forward to. Being in a foreign country is exciting, and somehow less stressful than being at home, because all the jobs and endless things that you have to do as a self-employed musician disappear, and are replaced with stresses about where you should be going, and how you’re going to ask for directions when you don’t know a word of German! But with six other friends to help out, it becomes a team experience.
The drama started with our first bus journey, where the driver hadn’t got a clue what I was talking about when asking if an overnight return was available, and he resorted to asking a random passenger in the front of the bus to translate for us! We eventually worked out that we could only buy singles, so piled on with all our equipment. I wonder what the locals thought of us siting there for almost an hour bursting into song every so often (this seems to be a regular Sector7 occurrence, with more than one extroverted singer in the room)!
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| Looking surprised that we made it all in one piece. |
Arriving at Reutlingen, we found it to be a lovely little town, with a bustling high street, down which we hoped to find a jazz club. The trouble with travelling to gigs is that you rarely have time to explore or enjoy the area, which can be seen as a good thing because it means that you don’t have time to spend your gig fee on food/drink/useless things! But it is a shame to travel so much, but only really see the inside of a gig venue and hotel room.
Jazz in der Mitte is a great little place, cramped into the cellar of a club, with chairs and tables squeezed in as tightly as possible to maximise the use of the minimal floor space. The intimate stage barely fit seven people on, but we managed. The club has done a terrific job of making a great experience for all audience members - half of the club is seated side-on to the stage, but cameras, speakers and a large TV-screen mounted on the wall means that all punters can share the same experience.
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| Sound check on the very small stage. I'm standing at the back of the club here! |
The gig was brilliant - we were warmly received, and enthusiastically applauded at every turn of genius from soloist or ensemble. It was so motivating to perform well, to have that level of appreciation. At the end of the concert we did a fairly lengthy encore, and then trooped off-stage upstairs to our Green Room. Overwhelmingly, I could hear unceasing applause, so realised I should probably go back onto stage. As I returned through the bar, the applause became uproarious! I’ve never experienced such a reception! Sadly for the crowd, three of the band had already escaped to the toilet and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get them back down, so I merely plugged our CD again. Must have worked because we sold 34 - wow!
As I’ve already mentioned, the audience were fantastic - young and enthusiastic, which generally you don’t tend to get in this country. To illustrate this, there were a couple of girls - students - who got chatting to the band, and it transpired that they had just been looking for something entertaining to do on a Saturday night, and had opted for a jazz club! If only the culture in this country promoted this sort of activity rather than preferring to stay in in front of the X-Factor.
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| My pork did not come coated with French fries. Disappointing. |
I must say that we had been so well looked after - after the concert, we returned to an excellent hotel (we had been treated to a fantastic, typically German, evening meal before the concert) and rose for breakfast at a reasonable hour before our afternoon flight. A brilliant experience. I would go back there in a minute.
Interestingly, the promoters for each of these gigs seemed to have some trouble with the name Sector7 (let’s face it, it’s a bit of a nonsense name and even I’m not entirely sure what it means!) with Jazz Cafe POSK seemingly reluctant to just use the word Sector7 and instead insisting on calling us variations on “The Sector7 Band,” and Jazz in der Mitte printing a contract in the name of “Select7.” Maybe I should change it - I quite like the concept of “Select” 7!
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| Select 7? |
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