Man, the Berlin Jazz Festival was really fantastic and yes the Germans did love us. The Festival has been going on since 1964 and have had every major jazz artist play it. It's not an outside festival as we have in New Orleans, but in a concert hall. This always makes us a little nervous because when we don't see people dancing and moving to our music we think "they don't like us," (paranoia) but these Berliners are very open and cultured people and are open to lots of different music. After the first song when they clapped very enthusiastically we knew we had them. We continued and it just built from there. After the last song they insisted that we come out for an encore.
The Germans as we suspect most Europeans are really glad Obama was elected president. The slogan for the festival was Jazz, we can and lots of Germans were wearing Obama buttons. I said on during the show to them that we understood they heard about our newly elected president and with no surprise, they all started clapping. That is encouraging to know that the Euros don't dislike us as Americans anymore as they had in the last 8 years of Bush. Read the lips...no more Bush.
Also on the bill the night we played was Roswell Ruddd, the very well know New York avant garde trombonist. We know Roswell from when he came to New Orleans last February and recorded a song with us that will be on his next record. He is 72 years young and is as hip as they come. We had to bring him out and play the song we recorded with him. His own composition called Bone Again. Later in the show we brought him back out along with Nils Landgren, the well known Swedish trombone player and also the music director of the festival. They played I'm Walking and they kicked it up a notch...bam.
We had a blast in the short time we were there. It was an honor to be there and play for the Berlin Jazz Festival.
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