| Details: | 23. Juli 21:30 Uhr
GiG Neue Welt & JAZZMÄDEL präsentieren im CAVALLO
Olaf Casimirs BassInstinct feat. Cynthia Utterbach
Es ist einer der beiden Konzerthöhepunkte im Juli, die wir präsentieren dürfen.
Das Besondere an diesem Konzert ist es nicht nur selbst, sondern auch, dass wir es in einer anderen Räumlichkeit präsentieren. Das befreundete Haus CAVALLO ist wohl eine der schönsten Räumlichkeiten in Hannover. Hinter dem Acanto und Basil liegend war es der Öffentlichkeit bisher nicht wirklich zugänglich. Seit einem Jahr nun besteht der Wunsch zusammen zu arbeiten und ganz besondere Highlights dort anzubieten. Endlich ist es soweit.
Olaf Casimirs BassInstinct dürfte den SoulJazz Freunden in dieser Stadt noch bekannt sein. Der letzte Auftritt dieser Ausnahmeband liegt schon mehr als drei Jahre zurück. Ausgezeichnet mit dem Avalon Preis als bester Kontrabassist hat Olaf Casimir eine Biographie, die deutlich macht in welcher Liga dieser Mann sich bereits aufhält: Aufnahmen und Tourneen mit Idris Muhammed, Till Brönner, Mark Murphy, Lional Hampton, Arthur Blythe, Great Guitars und DeeDee Bridgewater und viele mehr! An der Gitarre wird Olaf den in Hamburg lebenden Michael Pogoda einladen, ein Virtuose an dem Saiteninstrument, der sein Können regelmäßig in der NDR Bigband unter Beweis stellt und zu den gefragtesten Studiogitarristen Hamburgs zählt. Eine weitere Größe in dieser Band ist der Pianist und Organist Lutz Krajenski, der als Musiker mit Bobby Brown, Mousse T., Inga Rumpf, Cultured Pearls, Cunnie Williams, Gene, Mighty „Flea" Conners, Stephan Abel und Kurt Kress arbeitet. Michael Verhovec, der Drummer dieser Band, ist erst gerade jetzt von einer ausgedehnten Theatertournee aus Kolumbien zurück gekommen und war, bis er Wahlhamburger wurde, wohl mit der beliebteste Swing- und Funky Drummer dieser Stadt. Mittlerweile spielt Michael an „allen" Theatern dieser Welt, was deutlich macht, welch Ausdrucksvermögen in seinem Drumming steckt. Die Einheit aus Olaf Casimir und Mr. Verhovec ist purer Groove, der dem Zuhörer unweigerlich ein Lächeln abverlangt. Nun kommen wir zu unserem Gaststar, der Amerikanerin Cynthia Utterbach, die in eindrucksvoller Weise mit dem anbeiliegenden Info beweist, welch großartige Vocalistin Sie ist und welch eindrucksvolles Booklet Sie allein für Deutschland aufweist. siehe Info
Ich bitte dabei nicht zu vergessen, dass der "Mastermind" OLAF CASIMIR heißt !!!
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Jubel für „Billie Holiday" Im Hamburger Theater im Zimmer
Von Herdis Lüke, dpa
Hamburg (dpa/Ino) Freunde des Jazz sind ein Donnerstag abend im Hamburger Theater im Zimmer auf ihre Kosten gekommen. Hier brillierte die schwarze Amerikanerin Cynthia Utterbach als legendäre Bluessängerin „Billie Holiday“ in „Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" von Lanle Robertson. Trotz der Spätvorstellung um 23.00 Uhr, drückender Hitze und Sauerstoffmangel während der fast zweistündigen Vorstellung ohne Pause blieb das Publikum bei der Stange, applaudierte mit Klatschen, Bravorufen und Trampeln.
Die kleine, ganz in schwarz gehaltene Bühne wird zum Jazz Club,
begleitet von Olaf Casimir (Bass) und Enno Dugnus (Piano) verwandelt sich Cynthia Utterbach in die legendäre Jazzsängerin Billie Holiday, genannt „Lady Day", die 1915 in Baltimore im US-Bundesstaat Maryland als Eleanore Fagan geboren wurde. Es ist der letzte Auftritt der von Alkohol und Drogen schwer gezeichneten Künstlerin. Von ihren Musikern fast unwillig auf die Bühne gerufen, erzählt sie, mit mal rauher, mal weicher, fast samtener Stimme, aus ihrer traumatischen Kindheit und ihrem aufregenden Leben. Dazwischen bietet sie ihre Balladen dar, die ihre Traurigkeit bezeugen und gleichzeitig voller Humor und Witz sind.
Unter der Regie von Christoph Roethel spielte und sang Cynthia Utterbach so beeindruckend, dass das Publikum das Gefühl hatte, „Billie Holiday“ leibhaftig vor sich zu haben.
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Cynthia Utterbach: Old Feeling, New Sound
by Mike Hennessey
In most major western European cities today you can find at least one Afro American lady singer of Jazz, blues, or gospel music who has found a receptive audience thousands of miles from home. In the immediate postwar years, though, you had as much chance of finding a resident American lady singer on our side of the Atlantic as you had of finding a Swiss yodeler making a steady living in Detroit.
But in the decades that followed, along with U.S. Jazz musicians who decided to settle for a time in Europe came an increasing number of female vocalists who were delighted to find better working opportunities than existed in their highly competitive home environment and, generally, a higher level of appreciation and respect. Cynthia Utterbach is one of the more recent arrivals. She was born in New Jersey, moved to Los Angeles in the late seventies, and has been living in Hamburg since September 1994.
Cynthia came to Hamburg initially to appear in the musical The Buddy Holly Story, which is still running in the city. Soon after joining the show she was invited to become assistant voice coach for the production E .e + _a !!y she ceased being a permanent member of the cast and began seeking Jazz club and concert work. She appeared regularly at Dennis's Swing Club in Hamburg, performed in various other clubs and festivals, and, in between, gave private singing lessons with considerable success. At one time she was teaching more than fifty students a week.
Cynthia is less active as a teacher now because the gigs are flowing a lot more freely, and she is very happy about that. In the past three years she has won considerable acclaim for her mellifluous and sensitive readings of songs from the great standard repertoire, and she has crowned her endeavors with her very first, and long overdue, Jazz album, Close Your Eyes.
Says Cynthia, "My mother was a church choir organist and pianist, and she had a fine voice. I was a music major. I learned theory and sight reading, and I planned originally to become a classical singer, but when I started scatting to Madame Butterfly, the professor thought that maybe I should pursue another career. I grew up listening to the Supremes and other girlgroups, so when I started as a singer, I was mostly Top Forty music.
"Then in the early eighties, I decided to change over to Jazz. The main reason was that I got bred of learning all new Top Forty songs. I didn't like the lyrics, and I wasn't really comfortable with the gig situations lot of screaming and yelling, which was a problem for me because I have always been a kind of soft singer.
"But I still wanted to sing. Jazz kind of scared me at first because it seemed so deep. There was a club in L.A. called the Rapa House run by Virgil Rodgers, a trumpet player from Detroit. He took a chance on me and gave me a resident gig. It ended up being a big jam session venue. I met Alvin Batiste and George Bohanon and a lot of other musicians during my two years there, and in that time I really woke up to Jazz.
"It was the musicians at that club who gave me my first Real Book still have it today. They got so fed up with doing 'Misty' and 'Autumn Leaves' every night! They told me I had to learn some more tunes and some bebop.
"After the Rapa House gig other guys started calling. My big break came through Cad Burnett, who opened a drum school and invited me to Pin a workshop for singers. And that meant that I really had to be into Jazz, so I started diving into music." Cynthia ran the workshop for more than two years under the direction of Burnett and continued when Billy Higgins took over the school, right up to the time she moved to Hamburg.
She cites as her main inspiration Sarah Vaughan, and certainly she has a comparable warm sonority in the low register. Another influence was the highly distinctive Morgana King, who sang with a remarkable range, great tenderness, elegance and grace, excellent diction, and a strong sense of the dramatic.
Cynthia says that in Germany she works more regularly than would be possible back home. "So I'm happy that my career keeps me in Europe. When I go back to L.A. I am really appalled at how little money you can make and how few gigs there are. There are a lot of clubs, of course many more than in Hamburg but there are so many people looking for gigs.
"Here in Germany I am something of a novelty, so it is a lot easier to make things happen. But the catch with that, especially when you are a Jazz singer, is that the audiences here know music, so I'm really glad I did some training before I came. When you do a song, they can tell you the year so and so recorded it, and you'd just better know the lyric because they know the words better than you do. The level of appreciation and Jazz
awareness is higher here much higher. And that keeps you on your toes."
This commitment to Jazz manifested itself in a very positive way for Cynthia Utterbach when she was appearing with her group at Dennis's Swing Club. A group of businessmen enjoying an evening out in the club asked if they could buy a CD. But all she had recorded up to that point was the soundtrack of The Buddy Holly Story, a techno single, and a couple of other non Jazz titles. When she said that no CD was available, they invited her to meet them the following day.
"I met them for lunch," says Cynthia, "and they ended up sponsoring my CD. It was a great break for me." And one which, she rather suspects, would not have happened in Los Angeles.
The group with which Cynthia works regularly, and which is featured on the CD, is highly accomplished. It consists of Frank Belle, tenor sax; Jan Peter Klöpfel trumpet, fluegelhorn; Buggy Braune, piano; Olaf Casimir, bass; and Heinrich Köbberling, drums. For the CD, the band was augmented by Trinidad born vocalist and drummer Harold Smith. To quote Jack Bowers, who reviewed the album in the March 1998 Jazz Now, the six musicians "play with notable fire and enthusiasm."
Close Your Eyes, says Cynthia, "features songs I have always loved. I said to myself that this may be my one
shot, so I am going to make sure that my favorite songs are represented. I waited a long time to record a Jazz album that mirrors an old feeling with a new sound. A little something for everyone. This is the first recording that I can mention with pride and I'm glad it was Jazz."
So am I.
by Mike Hennessey
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