‘Beauty’ Pervades Germany’s Enjoy Jazz Festival

By Michael J. West I Oct. 27, 2026

London-based drummer Tom Skinner’s band, which relied heavily on swing and Afrobeat propulsion, created beauty of an earthier kind at Enjoy Jazz.
(Photo: Michael J. West)

A week at Enjoy Jazz is just a slice. The annual autumn “Festival for Jazz and More” in Germany’s Rhine-Neckar Triangle region — and the country’s largest jazz event — runs for more than a month (this year, its 28th edition, extends from Oct. 2 to Nov. 11) across the the cities of Heidelberg, Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. This correspondent attended from Oct. 9–15.

Was it a representative slice? That’s hard to say. The programming has a broad reach, both stylistically and internationally, and no particular week resembles any other. The only real through-line is the festival’s annual theme. This year’s is “Beauty.”

Much depends, then, on the eyes and ears of the beholders. Rainer Kern, Enjoy Jazz’s founder and artistic director, knows this. “Rest assured, in our program, you will not simply bathe in the crowd-pleasingly beautiful,” Kern writes in the festival guide (translated from German). “Whenever you have this impression, caution is advised. Because we will almost certainly hand you a scratchy towel afterwards.”

Thus warned, I immediately found myself immersed in, if not crowd-pleasing, then ingenious beauty. The multinational avant-garde quartet [Ahmed] performed at Ludwigshafen’s dasHaus on Oct. 9. Like their latest album, [Ahmed] Plays Monk, their set began with a fractured rendering of Thelonious’ “Bye-Ya”; unlike the record, from there they went into an unbroken hour of collective free-jazz. It was often repetitive, with bassist Joel Grip and drummer Antonin Gerbal locking in on minimalist patterns while alto saxophonist Seymour Wright croak-purred and Pat Thomas managed to be both clanging and soft-fingered. As it went on, though, the subtle fluctuations in those patterns started to show themselves — and the groove slowly but surely became irresistible.

The ingenuity, though, only became apparent with the next night’s program, also at dasHaus. Argentine-German saxophonist Camila Nebbia and her quintet’s set, played against a suite of abstract visuals projected behind them, was highly experimental; it wasn’t always clear what was going on. It took several minutes to realize the sci-fi sounds whizzing above Nebbia’s throbbing saxophone and Joanna Mattrey’s droning violin weren’t from electronicist Sam Pluta, but from harpist Kathrin Pechlof and pianist Marta Warelis raking their fingers up and down the strings of their instruments. (Pluta, meanwhile, worked feverishly at his laptop while also moving his body to a pulse that the rest of us couldn’t detect.)

These two ensembles were both free ones, but they couldn’t possibly have illustrated two more different approaches. There was beauty in that revelation alone.

On the 11th, at Heidelberg’s Metropolink Commissary, London drummer Tom Skinner created beauty of an earthier kind. His wonderful quintet relied heavily on jazz swing and Afrobeat propulsion. Much of the set was spent on exploring compositions by American jazz cello great Abdul Wadud — which naturally gave bassist Tom Herbert much to do — but with palpable, immediately danceable grooves from beginning to end. It wasn’t Herbert or even Skinner who most impressed, but tenor saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael, who could turn on a dime from long-tone spiritual-jazz melody to squalling atonality to intoxicating funk.

Two nights at the Alte Feuerwache, a 19th-century firehouse in Mannheim, were somewhat less successful in the ears of this beholder. Singer Savina Yannatou and her band Primavera en Salonico were joined by second singer Lamia Bedioui in performances of the trans-Mediterranean songs from their 2025 album Watersong. Yet the tandem vocals were a bit grating; together and live, Yannatou and Bedioui sound remarkably alike, both of them a curious combination of Stevie Nicks and Yoko Ono.

Vocals were also the order of the following evening for keyboardist-vocalist Samora Pinderhughes, who is a jazz player but taking a more singer-songwriter-oriented approach in his music. One wanted a little more of improvisational, instrumental muster; that came when Pinderhughes’ sister Elena, a flutist, played with them. Her gorgeous, dulcet but dramatic and rhythmically demanding work was the highlight of the night.

The sixth night, however (Oct. 14) was the sort of moment that makes one thank their lucky stars for being able to witness it. Star pianist Jason Moran, who earlier this year released a solo recording of Duke Ellington’s music, brought that project to the Church of Peace, a revered Modernist church in Ludwigshafen. The majesty of the performance is hard to overstate. Moran brought reverence for the Duke, with gleeful stride piano on “Dancers In Love” and astonishing (unbearable, even) delicacy on “Single Petal Of A Rose.” But he also wrought miracles of his own, with a deconstructive take on “Black And Tan Fantasy” and a hip-hop infection of “It Don’t Mean A Thing.” If an evening can be a masterpiece, this one was, with the encore — a furtively funky, then softly resolving “I Like the Sunrise” — sealing that status.

Maybe, after such a performance by such a giant, the only practical denouement could come via an unknown artist. Enjoy Jazz provided two. Both bassist/singer Loreen Sima and guitarist Yoshi Tschira are very young artists from the German state of Baden-Württemberg (which also includes both Mannheim and Heidelberg); neither has recorded, and both were eager to show off their visions at Heidelberg’s Karlstorbahnhof on Oct. 15.

Tschira’s ensemble LARGE — which is not a big band but a nine-piece — began with a set of curiously colored pieces in slow to medium tempi, irradiated by vocalist Jasmin Kleinhens and four horns. Sima closed the show, leading a trio augmented for the occasion by two backup vocalists and German Jazz Prize-winning trumpeter Jakob Bänsch. The latter had a gorgeous, often languorous sound that recalled Randy Brecker, but it was Sima who brought the music’s personality, a melodic and easily accessible jazz fusion led by Sima’s electric bass and Elias Storr’s noodling Nord synthesizer. (Kern didn’t say there’d be zero crowd-pleasingly beautiful stuff.) These are two artists to keep an ear on, and with Sima planning a recording-studio venture the opportunity will hopefully come soon enough.

Beauty might be subjective, but Enjoy Jazz objectively has a solid grasp on it. DB