Cologne Jazzweek: Teis Semey Quintet

Teis Semey (guitar) José Soares (saxophone) Jesse Schilderink (saxophone) Jort Terwijn (bass) Giovanni Iacovella (drums)

In his second home country, the Netherlands, Teis Semey is often referred to as "the bad boy of Dutch jazz". However, the guitarist, who was born in Aalborg, Denmark, in 1993 and moved to Amsterdam to study jazz, takes his nickname with a sense of humor. Even if his improvisational music is often rough and raw, loud and powerful and played with the attitude of a punk, Semey is by no means a "bad boy".
At the center of his quintet are two saxophonists on alto and tenor. It is they who counter the hot, emotional eruptions of the rhythm section around Semey with warm, sonorous sounds and a lyrical melody.

In any case, the guitarist and his musicians stand for an improvisational attitude, which for them is a tried and tested means of communication in order to become a real community. Semey is "primus inter pares" in this group because, as a composer, he sets the framework for the music to become the basis for a collective art of improvisation.

Further information

Venue:

Stadtgarten

The first concert in the newly built Stadtgarten concert hall in the mid-1980s launched a program unlike anything Germany had seen: an independent, artistically driven concert series devoted to contemporary improvised music. It was guided neither by attendance figures nor by public subsidies, yet it guaranteed musicians minimum fees and was run on professional terms. The conditions mattered just as much: an acoustically optimized, street-level concert space offering a strong setting for audiences and performers alike. Operations were financed through the adjoining hospitality business, the Stadtgarten restaurant and beer garden, a model that drew attention well beyond Germany.

Today the Stadtgarten Köln ranks among Europe's internationally recognized venues for contemporary and improvised music. The American magazine Down Beat features it regularly in its listings; it has received Germany's federal APPLAUS venue program award several times, including "Venue of the Year" in 2016, followed by the German Jazz Prize in the same category in 2022. More than 400 events across the full spectrum of contemporary music now take place there each year. Its international standing rests above all on the high proportion of demanding, experimental programming.

A programming mission of this kind depends on reliable public support. The venue's 30th anniversary in September 2016 opened that prospect: through a partnership between the City of Cologne and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, programming work is being substantially strengthened, and from 2017 onward the Stadtgarten Köln is being developed step by step into a "European Center for Jazz and Contemporary Music" – with the goal of becoming one of Europe's leading music centers.

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More dates at Stadtgarten: