All Star Brass: Jens Lindemann brings together some of the world’s top brass soloists for a performance at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, Dec. 2, 3 p.m. Tickets: Adult: $48| Senior: $46| Student: $19. kaymeek.com.
Give Jens Lindemann a Maui sunset or a Calgary snowstorm and he’ll pull out his trumpet and outshine Mother Nature at her own show.
Just last week, Lindemann – one of the world’s top trumpet soloists – serenaded a most unusual audience while vacationing in the Bahamas. It’s a working holiday for Lindemann, who will swing by the Kay Meek this Sunday with an all-star brass lineup, to see a project that’s he dreamed of for a while executed without a musical safety net.
The concept for Lindemann’s concert is simple and intimidating at the same time (to an outsider, at least): get some of the greatest brass players in the world together, have one rehearsal – and then raise the curtain. For this musical trust fall, Lindemann’s friends can lean on the fact they’re in good hands.
Back in the Bahamas, the Canadian trumpeter is warming up. Lindemann’s practice space near his resort is an open field occupied by several roosters.
The trumpeter plays to his audience – a spontaneous funk tune called “The Chicken.” Lindemann’s feathered friends crow in appreciation.
Of course, Lindemann has many fans of the human kind. The prolific performer and master educator was the first classical brass soloist to be awarded the Order of Canada. Receiving the country’s highest civilian honour was confusing to Lindemann.
“All of a sudden someone calls you and says, ‘We’ve decided to bestow this upon you,’” explains Lindemann. “And you feel an incredible responsibility that you are to pay forward this gift that’s been given to you – and inspire the next generation of brass players coming up.”
Lindemann credits his hard-working parents for his success in life. The family immigrated to Edmonton from Germany when Lindemann was a baby. Dad toiled as a welder in the oilfields, while mom stayed at home with her two sons.
“Any real reason that I’m in music today is because of immigrant parents who had one philosophy which was very simply: ‘Work, work, work for what you want because there is no free lunch,’” explains Lindemann.
When he was 12, what Lindemann desperately wanted was to be a drummer. It was the year Van Halen debuted their self-titled album, and drummer Rick Allen joined Def Leppard at the age of 15. The drums were the cool instrument that almost every band student, including Lindemann, wanted to play.
So, Lindemann’s band teacher tested the wannabe rockers. If you were good enough, you joined the percussion section. The consolation instrument was either the trumpet or clarinet.
“Out of 25 players I was dead last, so the director did not let me play drums and I was stuck on trumpet for a year,” recalls Lindemann, who, in the end, became hooked on the horn. “So, I picked trumpet by accident – it was a means to an end. I didn’t get what I wanted, but I ended up where I was supposed to be.”
In his yearbook, Lindemann wrote that his “life’s ambition” was to perform with trumpeter and Tonight Show Band leader Doc Severinsen one day.
“He changed my life,” says Lindemann, who caught Severinsen in concert when he came through Edmonton. “I sat in the audience and I saw how great he played but more importantly the real reason he became my hero … is because he knew how to engage an audience. He got them all involved in the concert – and I just thought that was the greatest thing ever.”
It was while Lindemann was studying music at Julliard that he dreamed of drafting jazz soloists for his all-star lineup. He was inspired by four famous string soloists, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma and Isaac Stern, who had released a series of concert recordings for Sony.
Hour 8 of being stranded one t highway with thousands of others...WOW! pic.twitter.com/lu1yztsaW9
— Jens Lindemann (@trumpetjens) October 3, 2018
He thought it was the greatest thing ever, to hear four solo artists come together and create something harmonious. Yes, they lent star power to the project, but that’s not what captivated Lindemann’s attention.
“Most importantly, they brought a freshness to the music because they weren’t an ensemble that played together for many years,” says Lindemann. “I never forgot that.”
A celebrated example of improvised jazz can be found on Miles Davis’s album, Kind of Blue, which is one of the most important recordings in history as far as Lindemann is concerned.
“He literally put the music in front of all those players, they sight-read it at the session, and they recorded it,” says Lindemann. “It was the birth of cool jazz.”
Lindemann hopes to create a similar musical experience inside the Kay Meek theatre on Sunday. The artist thrives on the intensity that fills the room when musicians get together for the first time.
“There’s a raw energy … to the fact that you’re basically working without a safety net,” describes Lindemann.
He’s counting on synergy from this makeshift group of musicians, who Lindemann handpicked from his contact list of the greatest brass players in the world. Rounding out the All Star Brass band are Larry Knopp (trumpet), JD Shaw (horn), James Miller (trombone), Patrick Sheridan (tuba), Kristian Alexandrov (percussion) and Ian Parker (piano).
The first part of the concert will be a “fantastic brass quintet repertoire” that All Star Brass recorded, while the second half will have a seasonal flavour to get the audience in the mood for Christmas.
“Brass and Christmas always go hand in hand, because there’s a joyous nature to the brass instruments in general,” says Lindemann.
Lindemann has played in every major concert venue in the world, from the Philharmonics of New York, Los Angeles and London to Carnegie Hall, and even the Great Wall of China.
This past October, Lindemann found himself stuck in the middle of a snowstorm on Highway 1, east of Canmore, for 11 hours with hundreds of other motorists. At hour six or seven, Lindemann grabbed his trumpet, got out of his rental car, and proceeded to serenade stranded truck drivers with a rousing rendition of “O Canada,” in the swirling snow.
A 17-year-old girl jumped out of her car and started recording. Once video of the über Canadian moment hit social media, it went viral.
“Within an hour and a half I had phone calls from all across the continent, saying: ‘We want an interview – we hear you’re saving people in the snow,’” recalls Lindemann with a laugh.
These days, the Grammy and Juno-nominated artist calls California home, where Lindemann is the head of brass studies at UCLA.
“There’s a really nice symbiotic relationship with the philosophy that UCLA had – and what I wanted to create,” says Lindemann, of when he accepted the professor job.
While he’s built from a classical music foundation, Lindemann has always played a lot of jazz and pop music.
“I never saw myself as being one or the other – I always just saw it as music,” he says. “And that’s an important message to send to young people, to keep your options open. Don’t put yourself into a box.”
Lindemann didn’t get to play the drums in high school, but his life’s ambition was achieved. Doc Severinsen is now one of his closest friends.
