What power lies within "niche" festivals like moers, Peitz... or generally in Jazz, Improvisation, and New Music festivals?
Andreas Biefang: First and foremost, these festivals are sanctuaries for free forms of music—music that follows its own rules and is free from commercial or external obligations. The fact that such festivals can exist at all is not something to be taken for granted; it is a value in itself. Additionally, they can possess political and social relevance when the external circumstances align. In the 1970s, avant-garde jazz festivals were part of a political and cultural movement to overcome a post-war era perceived as rigid and stagnant. This applied to Moers in West Germany as much as to Peitz in East Germany, though under the conditions of the GDR dictatorship, the "pathos of freedom" inherent in jazz possessed an even greater political explosive force.
Today, tendencies toward authoritarianism and the regulation of art, combined with the economic realities of making music, mean that the promise of freedom in improvised music is being perceived more strongly once again. Perhaps this kind of handmade music—including its electronic variations—is on the verge of a renaissance. At any rate, I would very much like to believe so, and sometimes, I actually do.
What changes can be observed over the years and decades (or in recent years)? How has the festival changed, and how have others evolved?
Andreas Biefang: The moers festival emerged in the 1970s, just like its counterpart in Peitz. At the time, the organizers' goal was to introduce (African) American avant-garde jazz to Germany and neighboring countries and to facilitate a creative exchange with European musicians. With the emergence of an increasingly independent European jazz—which adapted American styles but interwove them with European musical traditions—the programming began to shift.
By the 1990s at the latest, there was an expansion of the program toward "World Music" and "New Music." I don't mean this as a criticism—quite the opposite. These curatorial decisions ensure that Moers remains a place for rarely-heard music and thus stays "relevant." In my view, these developments are courageous and also "political" because they prevent an "identitarian hunker-down." The logical consequence, however, is that "African American" music (a term some Black Americans find misplaced), or "Jazz," recedes somewhat into the background—and the festival moves away from its origins as Europe's most important venue for African American "Free Jazz." Again, I don’t intend to criticize this. I simply believe that this process should not happen incidentally, but should be explicitly reflected upon—especially since there is a coincidental temporal overlap with the marginalization of Black culture under the current US regime.
In your article "Improvised Freedom," you referenced Thomas Krüger, who described Free Jazz (or the spaces where it happens) as "training camps for freer ways of thinking and living." A beautiful image! How do you interpret this?
Andreas Biefang: This question goes to the heart of the relationship between jazz and politics—a much-discussed, complicated topic on which no consensus can be reached. Regarding the American example, Peter Kemper recently published a very worthwhile book on the political significance of jazz (and other styles) for the Civil Rights Movement and the emancipation of African Americans.
Personally, I do not believe that artists, as such, possess special political knowledge that must necessarily be publicly proclaimed. Furthermore, musical statements follow different logics than linguistic utterances. A saxophone solo for peace would likely go unrecognized without accompanying spoken words. Many resolutions or statements also border on self-overestimation or kitsch. And when one looks at how many hymns were sung to the mass murderer and arch-collectivist jazz-hater Mao in the 1970s, and how much identitarian nonsense was spouted back then, I think a bit of historical reappraisal would do the political and ethical credibility of jazz some good.
Nevertheless, I believe that Free Jazz and subsequent variants of improvised music can have great political significance because they help to clear the mind of clichés and practice respect for the unknown. I suspect that the "sense of freedom" conveyed by Free Jazz, as invoked by Thomas Krüger, ultimately has the greatest political impact. In this respect, Moers and Peitz are still bastions of liberal democracy.
Dr. Andreas Biefang is a historian at the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties (KGParl.).