The 14th Annual IASJ Jazz Meeting 2004

Freiburg, Germany 30 may - 5 June

The host school for the fourteenth time that the IASJ had it Annual IASJ Jazz Meeting was the Jazz & Rock School in Freiburg in the south of Germany. Over a hundred and twenty people from twenty four countries from around the world participated in the meeting.
The Jazz & Rock School Freiburg is located a little outside of the beautiful old centre in what used to be an energy plant. The Host School Coordinator is Bernd Hofmann and in organizing the meeting he was helped by Florian Städtler. Since David Liebman could not make it for happy family reasons and because it was time for a change, Swiss jazz musician, bandleader and composer George Gruntz was invited to be the Artist in Residence of the meeting. George Gruntz advised in compiling the combos, gave master classes on writing, arranging and composing and give advice, tips and help in all formal and informal activities of the meeting.

The concert and jam sessions of IASJ Jazz Meetings have always taken place at exotic places. Since Freiburg is located in the south of Germany and close to France and Switzerland it was an opportunity to make use of the special geographical situation. On Tuesday the two busses left to the south. In the afternoon the participants were welcomed by the Jazz School which is part of the Music academy in Basel, Switzerland. The teacher’s concert of that night took place in Jazz Café Punktleuchten in Basel.
A day later, on Wednesday the two busses left for the west to France. A lively jam session took place in the Theatre Municipal in Mulhouse in France. On Thursday the jam session took place in a beautiful place a little outside of Freiburg on the slopes of the Black Forest in a famous jazz place called Gasthaus Waldsee.
Every morning there were lectures and master classes and rehearsals of the six jazz combos led by two or three teachers. The hard work resulted in impressive concerts that took place on the Friday and Saturday night in the Big Hall of the E-Werk, a former energy plant transformed to a nice theater next to the school. The representatives of the schools discussed a wide array of subjects during the Representatives Meeting. The Daily Board and the Full Board came together to discuss future plans that were discussed and accepted by the General Assembly on the last day. Among the most important decisions are the location of the next IASJ Jazz Meetings and the acceptance of a budget for the Activity Plan 2004.

The last day of the 14th IASJ Jazz Meeting, Saturday 5 June 2004, was a historic day in jazz and jazz education. The Jazz & Rock School Freiburg celebrated its 20th anniversary.

For more information, please contact:
Bernhard Hofmann
Jazz and Rockschule
Hinter den Löwen 36
77955 Ettenheim
Germany
Tel: + 49 2247 89 03
E-mail: bghofmann@aol.com