Rodrigo Amado The Bridge

Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone) Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) Ingebrig Håker Flaten (bass) Gerry Hemingway (drums)

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Widely considered as one of the most important European improvisers currently on the scene, in this quartet Rodrigo Amado gathers three of his strongest longtime influences, three leaders in their own right: German master pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, Norwegian double bass wizard Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and legendary American drummer Gerry Hemingway.

For Amado this band represents a deep dive into his own formative roots. With Schlippenbach, Håker Flaten and Hemingway by his side, he has the perfect context to explore the classic materials he considers to be the basis of his journey as a musician, an impulse that is part him and part history. As US critic Stuart Broomer wrote: “Amado is an emerging master of a great tradition, more apparent with each new recording or performance.”

This is a quartet whose name really represents, aside from a direct homage to Sonny Rollins, a bridge between different languages, backgrounds and generations, all united through improvisation.

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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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