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Barbara Dennerlein Newsletter Adventures |
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Many years ago, Barbara Dennerlein, performed in concert in Vancouver,
Canada, but like ships passing in the night, we missed each other by
just a few days, as this writer was moving. We did however arrange an
interview, remotely over the phone. The superlative Blues and Jazz
organist who has toured the world, left audiences in awe of her talent
and equally so of her immense skills as a composer and innovator, has
become a beloved and cherished friend over the years. Barbara has been a
guest at Riveting Riffs Magazine, many times over the past decade and
one-half and recently she sat down with me from her home in Germany. We
have dubbed this The Newsletter Interviews, because her
newsletters are full of information about her current concerts, past
events, sometimes going back many years and quite frankly, because of
the insight they provide about this amazing musician who plays the
Hammond organ and also pipe organs and yes she still plays Jazz and
Blues on them, as well as her own creations.
Have a good glass of wine, or a soda or cup of tea and settle in as we
explore once again the life of Barbara Dennerlein.
Our conversation began with her concert in the Church of St Martin in
Dundelange in May, when she played the pipe organ. It was a
collaboration with saxophonist Laurent Pierre.
She says, “Besides the Hammond organ I play a lot of pipe organ and that
is a very big challenge. It is not like playing a Hammond organ, which
is more or less the same instrument (no matter which one you play), but
pipe organs are extremely different. This was a very big church with a
long delay. It was a big pipe organ with a lot of pipes, registers and
sounds. The acoustics were challenging in a way, because of the delay
(in the sound). It was a challenge for both of us to play together
because it is unbelievable, but just a few meters make a total
difference. When He is (standing) at the wrong place then he is not
together with what I am playing. The pipe organs are not as direct as a
Hammond organ when you press a key, and you immediately hear the notes.
It is always dependant on the organ technique and what the distances are
between the keyboards and the pipes, some are more direct, and some are
delayed. With this one it was quite delayed, and the distances were
great. First, we had to find the right place where he needed to stand,
so he could be in time with me. With Jazz music it has to groove and
swing or whatever it is that we are playing. We needed to be together,
which was a bit of a challenge, but it worked very well. I played my
originals and also, I arranged a few songs for the pipe organ.
I always create a new sound when I am at the organs, because they are
very different. The acoustic is different, and the choice of sounds is
different. It is always a new creation if you want to say it like that
At home I have a digital pipe organ that was built for me, by an organ
builder, it has original keys and pedals and three keyboards made out of
wood. When you push down a key it is not too light. I wanted an organ
that took more power to press the keys down, to train my fingers.”
We wondered how challenging it is to be playing a pipe organ in so many
venues (mostly churches, because that is where they are found), each
with acoustics unique to that particular venue.
“People never think about that. If you compare it to a piano player, the
quality may be different, but the number of keys is the same and you
don’t have different registers for the sound and the (pedals are the
same). The pipe organ is a challenging instrument, because thousands of
things are different. The first thing is the size. You have organs with
maybe thirty registers, or you have an organ where I recorded my CD and
DVD My Moments, which has more than one hundred sounds that you can
mix. When you have a pipe organ you can have two, three, four or five
keyboards and for each keyboard there is a special group of pipes. That
means there are a special group of sounds which are only playable on
that keyboard. You also have the sounds of strings, flutes and other
instruments and then you have the organ sounds. You also have the higher
tones which is the brilliance of the organ. If you compare two pipe
organs and if you have a trumpet sound, it often sounds very different,”
she explains.
Our attention turns to two of Barbara Dennerlein’s original compositions
performed the same day Church of St Martin in Dundelange.
“I play some of my typical repertoire, Blues, Funk Bebop or whatever. I
also compose songs that are more complex, especially for the pipe organ,
because I want to present the pipe organ in a nice context. I write
compositions that are not really Classical, but they are somewhere
between Jazz and Classical music.
“11 th Hour: Overture For a New World.”
is about the world, and it tells a story in a way. It consists of
different parts and each part is illustrating something, how we treat
nature, how we treat the creatures that live with us and that always
bothers me very much. We treat our animals so badly. They are so
precious. I take a lot of inspiration from nature. I love to be outside
in nature and to feel the power of it. In the end nature is stronger
than mankind. Nature always survives somehow. It will change of course.
We occupy so much of the world, and we are destroying so many things. It
makes me so sad, and I just want to tell the people and to put their
focus on, how precious a forest is for us. If we destroy things like a
rainforest, what shall we breathe? It is not only to survive, but it is
for quality (of life).
Everything that happens, wars, and not just now, but if you go back in
history there has always been cruelty, wars and destruction. It is
always about having power and money. We are in 2024 and why is it not
possible to live in peace. It is hard to understand.
The song starts in minor, and it goes a long way in minor and in the
end, it is in major. Because I am optimistic, I always have the hope
that people will be able to realize and to manage. We always think we
are important in the universe, but we are not important. Maybe nature
will be there when we are not there. It was there before us, and it will
be there after us.
Many younger people only know the internet, because they grew up with
that and the danger is they only live virtual lives. We always talk
about being careful not to use a lot of energy, but all the data takes
so much power and electricity. We should really be careful, and nobody
thinks about that.
I love music and since we have email it makes many things easier, but of
course it takes your time and your energy for things that are not
essential. It is essential for us to communicate with one another. What
kind of a world is it when you can’t be sure anymore what is real and
what is not real, what is fake. Isn’t that sad,” she says.
So, Barbara is it a myth or did you really compose a tango for the pipe
organ?
I really love “Tango Perdido,” and it is really nice to play on the pipe
organ. I often play it as the last song of the concert. Sometimes the
(people) even dance,” just sometimes we ask, and she reminds us that
the venues are often churches, because that is where the pipe organs are
found, “I have always loved rhythm and I just had this idea for a
tango. It sounds so beautiful on a pipe organ. I don’t play it on a
Hammond organ, because for me the pipe organ is a better (fit).
You can play a Latin groove on a (Hammond) organ, but you have to play
it a different way. The Hammond organ and pipe organ are two totally
different instruments. There are songs I can play on both instruments,
but then I have to modify them and play them in another way. Some
compositions are especially for the pipe organ, and some are written
especially for the Hammond organ.
At a concert in
the Rhineland where she performed with saxophonist Jörg Kaufmann they
played her composition “Sweet Poison,” but our focus this time out, is
more on the interesting story she shared during the concert. It
concerned how flugelhorn player Alex Sipiagin ended up on her album
Outhipped.
Barbara settles into storytelling mode, “The trumpet player was hired
for the recording session, and he suddenly told us in the studio that he
did not want to play the flugel horn (small laugh) and it was very
surprising. It was not a problem in a city like New York, because you
have so many great players around. It took a half an hour and then
another flugel horn player, Alex Sipiagin
(arrived). In the end it was the best choice that we could do,
because he played so sensitively in that song. Things looked bad at
first and then it turned out really good.”
Just so readers are aware, our retelling of the series of events does
not do justice to her telling of the story, because Barbara Dennerlein
is a good conversationalist, who is both funny and entertaining and she
laughs easily.
Now she slips into an even more entertaining story that took place on
June 3, 1988, “I played some concerts in the old DDR, the German
Democratic Republic (in the former Soviet Union), before the wall came
down. I was quite young. At that time when you drove to Berlin we had to
drive with the van, because we had the instruments with us. I was with
my trio. When you crossed the DDR there was a highway and it was
absolutely forbidden to stop or to leave that highway. I was in the van
with the drummer and the guitar player. (Two of us) fell asleep and
after a while I woke up, because I felt the car was making strange
movements in a bad way. When I opened my eyes, I only saw gray and brown
colors. I thought we can’t be in the DDR, because this was forbidden.
When I opened my eyes, I realized yes, we are there. Then the police
came, and they stopped us immediately. My drummer was following the
signs that said Berlin main city, but in small letters it said, main
city of the DDR. When he followed those signs, he drove off of the
highway. I though oh god they will put us in prison now and it will cost
us a lot of money. There were only gray and brown colors and old
buildings.
We started talking with the police and my drummer was really quite naïve
and in that naïve tone with the police he explained that he was just
following the signs. They realized he was telling the truth and they
started to laugh behind their hands. It ended up that we were driving
through the east part of Berlin in front of and behind the police cars.
They escorted us to the famous Checkpoint Charlie. That was one of the
points you could cross to the west. I had to pay some punishment, pay
some money and they searched the car. In the end we made our concert in
a club called Quasimodo in west Berlin.”
We know has an innovative creative Barbara Dennerlein’s music has
evolved over the years, but we wondered if that was also true of her
audience.
“I have noticed that the audience is partly getting older, like we all
do, because I have a lot of faithful fans who have known me for a long
time. It is funny when I am in a concert and people come to me and they
tell me that they heard me for the first time when I was eighteen and
playing in whatever club. That is so nice, because you think how can
that be?
The audience is a mixture in a way. There are more people over forty
than younger people. I remember a time when there were a lot of younger
people. I am very thankful that I have my old fans, but also my new
fans. This is a positive thing with social media that younger people can
discover you. Just a few weeks ago someone posted a reel of a concert
that I played. It was a really fast song with a lot of pedal work.
Immediately there were twelve thousand likes. It is unbelievable.
Someone who might not yet be into Jazz music or the organ and then it is
shared, and you win a new audience.
First of all, I started with the Hammond organ and then I started to do
this pipe organ thing and I was not sure if people would follow me. Now
people are happy with it, and I am thankful for that audience. It is
still growing,” she says.
What is next for Barbara?
“Next is a creative break for the summertime, because I was playing a
lot. I wanted to do a lot of things and I did not have time for
composing. I want to (tone) it down a little bit and not being on stage
all of the time. I want to work with my music a little more and to
create new things. When you are on tour it is a lot of fun and it is
great On tour you can’t do other things and I can’t practice on tour,
because my instrument is in the car or on stage. I just want to have
time to do all of those things now. (She makes the point that some of
the countries she used to tour in are no longer safe.)
Also, the bureaucracy has become so difficult and when I go to North
America, in former days you could have a work permit for a longer
(period) of time. I remember times when you could have it for a year or
so. Now it has all become so complicated. I had an invitation to play in
Seoul South Korea in a big hall and it was a great experience. I had
another invitation to play in South Korea and they just left me alone
with all of that visa craziness. I had to bring about twenty documents
and things that I needed from the promoter, and I didn’t understand the
language. Then because it was after COVID they wanted me to sign a paper
that said, in case (there was a COVID outbreak) the government had the
right to put me somewhere at my expense and I had to agree to this in
advance.”
Please take time
to visit Barbara Dennerlein’s
website and you can easily find her music on
YouTube, by just searching her name.
#BarbaraDennerlein #BarbaraDennerleinInterview #GermanOrganist #RivetingRiffsMagazine #RivetingRiffs #BluesJazzOrganist #PipeOrganist #HammondOrganist
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It
was a lot of fun. It is always astonishing for me that a saxophone in a
church is quite loud (she laughs heartily). (still laughing) when you
compare it to the organ it is quite small. You can produce (a lot) of
volume on it. The pipe organ is huge, but it is different than a horn
player or a drummer and he is hitting the snare drum, which has a lot of
pressure and power. A pipe organ is such a huge instrument, but it also
has a lot of soft tones. We had to find a nice mixture of both
instruments. We were elevated above the audience, so they heard the
organ differently than we did,