Johannes Enders, Joris Teepe, Billy Hart
Biography Johannes Enders, Joris Teepe, Billy Hart
Johannes Enders
is a German saxophonist, composer, producer and teacher. Since 2009 he has held a professorship for jazz saxophone at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig.
Johannes Enders, born on May 12, 1967 in Weilheim, began his musical career at the age of 14 when he switched from the flute to the alto saxophone and discovered his love for soul and jazz music. Strong influences for him at the time were Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, David Sanborn, James Brown, Michael Brecker and later Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
He quickly realized that music would determine his life. After a few years of studying with Jürgen Seefelder and André Legros at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, his journey took him to the music academy in Graz in 1987 to study jazz saxophone and improvisation with Charlie Miklin, Adelhard Roidinger and Carl Drewo. He only stayed there for two years.
After meeting key figures such as Jerry Bergonzi and David Liebman, with his mentors Vincent Herring and Reggie Workman, who got him a scholarship at the New School in New York, his long-held dream of moving to the capital of jazz to study and play with greats such as Donald Byrd, Jaki Byard, Jeff Tain Watts, Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, Joey Calderazzo, Sam Rivers, Peter Bernstein, Joe Locke, Pete LaRoca, Roy Hargrove and many others came true.
His silver trophy at the "American Music Fest" in San Francisco (1990) and his participation in the renowned "Thelonious Monk" competition in Washington D.C. the following year paved the way for him in the promised land. Back in Germany, Johannes Enders quickly established himself as one of the most important voices on the tenor saxophone and was signed by the renowned jazz label ENJA Records. Here he founded his own projects such as his acoustic quartet, his saxophone quartet ZeitGeistMaschine and the duos with jazz legend Günter Baby Sommer or with Rainer Böhm as well as his electro-jazz projects Enders Room and Enders Dome.
For his immense creative output, he has been awarded the Austrian Jazz Prize, the Cultural Promotion Prize for Music of the City of Munich, the SWR Jazz Prize, the Weilheim Cultural Prize, the New German Jazz Prize, the Jazz Echo 2012, the German Music Authors Prize and the Bavarian State Promotion Prize, among others.
As a sought-after sideman in bands such as The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, Billy Hart European Quintet, Günther Baby Sommers Quartett Süd, Franco Ambrosetti Quartett, Karl Ratzer Quintet and many others, he has now played in all the important clubs and festivals and has immortalized himself on over 100 studio recordings to date.
Joris Teepe
In 1992 bassist Joris Teepe left his homeland - The Netherlands - to chase his dream of being a jazz musician in New York. He moved into a $300-per-month room in Manhattan. The room was so small that in the daytime the double bass occupied his bed, and Joris had to store it in the shower at night.
He took lessons with Ron Carter, and a year later he recorded his first CD with a band co-led by tenor saxophonist Don Braden. The next six or seven years he found himself working with legends such as Benny Golson, Sonny Fortune, Billy Hart and Randy Brecker.
Up till now, Joris has recorded 22 albums as a leader or co-leader and over 65 as a sideman. His longest stint was with Rashied Ali (John Coltrane’s last drummer), with whom he recorded 5 albums and toured the world between 2000 and 2009. Among other ‘heavy cats’ that Joris performed and recorded with are Barry Harris, Bobby Watson, Tom Harrell, John Abercrombie, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman and Mike Clark, and Dutch masters such as John Engels (who toured with Chet Baker), Benjamin Herman, Eric Ineke and Rob van Bavel.
Composing and arranging has always been a creative outlet for Joris and a motivation to release so many of his own albums - besides recording his compositions on releases with (again) Don Braden, Rashied Ali and Randy Brecker, not to mention Chris Potter, Kevin Hays, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Deborah Brown, Louis Hayes, James Williams, Tom Harrell, Tim Armacost, Cyrus Chestnut, Mike Stern, Carl Allen, Gene Jackson and many others.
Joris wrote over 100 original compositions, including large pieces for Symphony Orchestra + Jazz Quartet and Symphony Orchestra + Big Band + Choir. He leads his Joris Teepe Big Band in New York, playing exclusively his own music, and performs his own repertoire as a guest soloist with local big bands.
Over the years Teepe has established himself as an experienced jazz educator, teaching at “Queens College, Aaron Copland School of Music” (NY), “Jazz for Teens” (Newark NJ), as well as serving as the Director of the Jazz Department at the “Prince Claus Conservatory” in Groningen, Netherlands.
He has also taught at “Peter Herbolzheimer European Jazz Academy” (Germany), “Jazzinty” (Slovenia), “ChoJazz” (Poland), “Orsara Jazz Camp” (Italy), “JZ-School Summer Camp” (China), and “Litchfield Jazz Camp” (Connecticut, USA).
Billy Hart
was born in Washington, D.C., on November 29, 1940. His first steady gigs of note were with Shirley Horn and Buck Hill. In the 1960s, he toured with Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Eddie Harris, and Pharoah Sanders, and recorded with McCoy Tyner, Joe Zawinul, and Wayne Shorter. In 1970 he joined Herbie Hancock’s Sextet, and after that band broke up in 1973, he joined first McCoy Tyner (two years) and then Stan Getz (four).
In the 1980s, Hart was a regular with many bands and leaders: Gerry Mulligan, Billy Harper, Clark Terry, the New York Jazz Quartet, the Jazztet, Mingus Dynasty, and most extensively with Quest (with David Liebman, Ritchie Beirach, and Ron McClure). In the 1990s, Hart was a member of the Charles Lloyd, Joe Lovano, and Tom Harrell groups, and in 1999 he began performing with the Three Tenors (Liebman, Lovano, and Michael Brecker). He is on roughly 500 records as a sideman.
Since the early 1990s, Hart has devoted much of his time to teaching, particularly at Oberlin. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University. He teaches private lessons through the New School and New York University, and he contributes to the Stokes Forest Music Camp and the Dworp Summer Jazz Clinic in Belgium.
Currently, Hart leads a group with Ben Street, Mark Turner, and Ethan Iverson, and is a featured member in the trios of guitarist Assaf Kehati and pianist Jean-Michel Pilc. He was named an NEA Jazz Master for 2022.
