# What you call free palaver: Günter Christmann is 80. Free jazz musicians have never found the right balance: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/12/14/what-you-call-free-palaver/
- Published: 2022-12-14T00:02:58+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**He was one of the early free jazz musicians, performed with Pina Bausch and played
on the roofs of Wuppertal: Now the jazz trombonist Günter Christmann is 80. Free
jazz musicians have never found the right balance. Musically they tended towards
exaggeration, verbally towards understatement. Their aesthetic goal was the acoustic
total. But when they improvised, they simply called it “playing freely,” and reacting
counterpointed to one another meant “we palaver.”**

You should only trust the tonal language, without prejudice and without the Chinese
of the subject. They were right, although listening often became difficult. Everything
could be accepted as a game, but not everything was musically useful. At least you
knew that afterwards. Those who, as artists and listeners, had survived the long
phase of sound discovery in the thicket of the free-jazz bustle were definitely 
wiser.

The trombonist Günter Christmann is one of those free spirits who eventually separated
the chaff of the mere roar from the wheat of the exciting new musical sound. As 
a free jazz musician from the very beginning in Germany, he belonged to the Wuppertal
and Berlin circles around Peter Brötzmann and Alexander von Schlippenbach, published
his first recordings with Free Music Production (FMP), played for many years in 
the Globe Unity Orchestra (in the trombone trio Albert Mangelsdorff and Paul Rutherford)
and has performed at various Total Music Meetings. One could hardly penetrate deeper
into the nucleus of the new tones in jazz.

![GUNTER CHRISTMANN & JOHN RUSSELL DUO & TRIO WITH ELKE SCHIPPER @ ARCH 1,  18-06-
13 - YouTube](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/aNY-k_kcDKs/maxresdefault.jpg?w=640&
ssl=1)

His recordings with the clarinetist, saxophonist and accordion player Rüdiger Carl,
in a duo with the drummer Detlef Schönenberg and in the quintet of the bassist Peter
Kowald at FMP are among the free jazz milestones of the early 1970s. The appearances
with the dancer Pina Bausch in the Academy of Arts in Berlin and the later choreographic-
musical works with Elizabeth Clark and Regina Baumgart were characteristic artistic
crossings of those years. One could also experience Günter Christmann as an improvising
individualist in Peter Kowald’s “Funfair Music”, where he played the alphorn with
Paul Rutherford, standing on the roofs of Wuppertal like medieval tower trumpeters.
His most notable compositions from this period include his solo music for trombone
and double bass.

Günter Christmann received initial inspiration from traditionalists of New Orleans
jazz such as Kid Ory and George Lewis, learned banjo, bass and violoncello before
he found his way to the trombone and dealt with the new jazz of John Coltrane and
Ornette Coleman. After long explorations of free jazz, since the early 1990s he 
has been primarily concerned with mixed media projects combining instrumental improvisation,
musique concrète, film and light installations, belonged to Wolfgang Fuchs’ legendary
King Übü Örchestrü and founded the improvisational ensemble Vario, made up of musicians
dancers, actors and acrobats.

In the many years of his musical activity, Günter Christmann, a tireless experimenter,
has developed a sophisticated trombone technique that includes circular breathing,
multiphonics, playing with different reed mouthpieces, mutes and unusual sound materials.
This Tuesday he celebrates his eightieth birthday.

![Jazz-Posaunist Günter Christmann wird 80 Jahre alt](https://i0.wp.com/media0.faz.
net/ppmedia/aktuell/2638918443/1.8493968/default-retina/im-kern-der-neutoener-jazz.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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