Concert Elb Meadow Ramblers (Louis Armstrong year 2025)

About the concerts in the series (information from the organisers)

On 7 April, the Gary Winters Quartet will play a short history of jazz in the Rathausfestsaal Erfurt. The American trumpeter Gary Winters, who has performed with Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, Pee Wee Ellis, Fred Wesley, Lesley Gore, Bobby Byrd, Aretha Franklin, ABBA and Tito Puente Jr. among others, is an absolute master of different styles. The quartet gives us a musical tour of the development of jazz music from its beginnings in New Orleans to the present day, emphasising the outstanding role played by Louis Armstrong.

On 21 May, the Elb Meadow Ramblers, one of Germany's longest-standing and most renowned traditional jazz bands, will play the legendary concert that Armstrong gave in the Thüringenhalle in 1965 at Haus Dacheröden. The Ramblers were founded in Dresden in 1955 and are an important musical bridge between tradition and the present.

On 17 June, Professor Jack Cooper will give a lecture at the memorial in Andreasstraße on how Louis Armstrong was viewed in the East and West, followed by a concert. The multi-award-winning saxophonist Jack Cooper has worked as an instrumentalist, composer and music director with Marc Secara and the Berlin Jazz Orchestra, Bernie Dresel, Jiggs Whigham, Marc Marshall, Kenny Rogers, the Temptations, Macy Gray and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, among others. The legendary trombonist Hermann Anders from the Jazz Optimisten Berlin, who played with Louis Amstrong in East Berlin in 1965, will be a guest.

On 24 October, tenor saxophonist Lawrence Clark from New York will perform. He has worked with many great jazz musicians over the course of his career and has played in legendary jazz clubs (including the Blue Note, Smalls and Apollo Theatre). The concert will compare the developments in jazz around 1965 with Armstrong's musical achievements.