Bernd Köppen & Theo Jörgensmann – reunited
“The Story of Professor Unrat”

SUN 25 MAR 2012, GOETHE INSTITUTE, AMSTERDAM (NL)

Bernd Köppen – piano, theo Jörgensmann – Clarinet

Theo Jörgensmann and Bernd Köppen formed a top duo from 1984 to 1999 and were an integral part of the international jazz scene.

During this period they were successful in concerts, festivals and radio recordings, both as a duo and as co-leaders of international ensembles. They were founders of the ‘European Way’, a successful combination of European chamber music and contemporary jazz.

In January 1986 they recorded their album ‘Für den letzten Gast’ live in the Immanuelskirche in Wuppertal. None other than jazz god Joachim Ernst Behrendt certified the “togetherness” of the two musicians for this release and thus coined a completely new term for the somnambulistically confident and con-genial interaction of this duo.

In February 2011, after 12 years of ‘abstinence’, they performed together again for the first time, on the occasion of one of the jubilee concerts for the 15th anniversary of the ‘unERHÖRT’ concert series initiated by Köppen. They were not only able to continue where they left off in 1999, but also to integrate the experiences they had gained separately into their new ensemble playing.

In September 2011 a recording of this concert was released on CD under the title ‘The Story of Professor Unrat’.

In the album’s liner notes, Dr. Ulrich Kurth, for a long time jazz editor of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR): (see below)