It's been a long time now since the fall of the Berlin wall and communism in Eastern Europe, but it wasn't really that long ago that musicians, like Baby Sommer, had to struggle to play their instruments and the music they loved. Baby is from Dresden, in the former DDR (German Democratic Republic), better known as East Germany. In those days behind the Berlin Wall, he and his fellow jazz musicians struggled to play a music that was often frowned upon, or even forbidden, because it represented the West, most notably American culture. But musicians are a clever lot, and the jazz musicians in the DDR managed not only to survive, but thrive, and also create some very amazing music in the process.

This interview was conducted almost 10 years ago, in November 1999 at the PASIC convention in Columbus, Ohio. Günter presented a rare clinic/performance  in a small side room at, I think it was 8AM. There was a definite buzz in the air and his session was well attended. He played some of his wonderful solo compositions, demonstrating both his great technique and great sense of humor. After the session, I managed to set up an impromptu interview with him. Lacking a formal interview room, we ended up finding a table with a few chairs set up in one of the hallways at the convention center. With people walking by, and the convention going on around us, I managed to get one of the most amazing interviews I've ever done. I only wish the printed word could do it justice, as Günter told stories, made gestures, laughed, and was just an amazing presence in person. We must have conversed for close to an hour. I was mesmerized by his story. A special thanks to photographer Crystal Trowbridge for capturing the performance & interview on film with some amazing photos of Günter. This interview is featured in the book, Percussion Profiles, that I wrote along with English percussionist, Trevor Taylor. I now present you,

Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer: Playing Behind the Curtain

by Michael Bettine

The former East Germany, once a stalwart of Socialism, was hardly the place one would expect to find jazz musicians creating new music in the face of Communist conformity. But it is perhaps the oppressive regime that often ignites the human spirit and gives birth to a tenacious creativity. And so it is with drummer Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer. Long a mainstay on the cutting edge of free jazz in Europe, he had to struggle to maintain his art while working within the confines of a narrow minded political system. On one of his all too rare trips to North America, he was invited to perform and speak at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in the autumn of 1999, where I had the opportunity to converse with him. Charming and witty, he displays a warmth that reveals an artist in touch with himself and his music.

“When I was a kid, I was so influenced by this ‘Voice of America’ jazz hour, broadcast night by night,” he says. “When I was 14 years old, I had a friend who was older than me. It was funny, but from my room, I had to pass by my parent’s room (to get out), and all night I was sneaking out without making any noises, passing their sleeping door, and then to my friend’s place where I listened to short wave, long wave—under conditions you can’t imagine. It was like in the war. You know, the German’s listened to the BBC broadcasts—and it was so amazing for me to hear music, sounds I had never heard before. When I started to listen to Art Blakey and all these hopped up guys, I felt this is my music. And the quality of the broadcasts depended on the atmosphere. We had a radio that made a sound, ‘vssshhhhuuuiiit,’ and the signal would disappear and then come back later.”

“I was very influenced at that time by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, and all those hard bop players, plus the blues. But in the DDR we couldn’t do it. It was kind of an underground interest. I went to school in the daytime, and at night time I was listening to music. And I started playing trumpet and accordion, then I changed to the drum kit because the drummer in the band had left. It was a funny thing. The drummer had two hobbies on the weekend: playing music and going fishing. His wife told him he had to choose, fishing or music. And he decided on going fishing! So we didn’t have a drummer in the band. And going out playing dance music without a drummer is impossible. We could do without the trumpet, which was not as necessary. So this was the moment that came for me to play the drums.”

East Germany was a world away from the more democratic Europe, or United States, where anyone with musical aspirations could join a band and play gigs. Working within the Socialist confines necessitated ingenuity and perseverance. “After elementary school I went to the university, to the music department. And in 1961 they started a class of so called ‘dance music.’ But the teachers were jazz influenced musicians and they were teaching swing music and a little be-bop.”

“To become a pop musician in the DDR, meant you had to pass an examination and get a permit to work as a musician. This permit allowed you to get paid 5 marks an hour, and you were class A, B, or C. All musicians and groups were divided into different levels, or quality classes. From the beginning I was one of the so called ‘upper class’ musicians concerning money and my position. But it was funny, there was an order that said you had to play 60% compositions from the Socialist block composers, and only 40% of compositions from the West. And all this is so silly, you can’t believe it.”

As silly as much of the political posturing of the time seemed, the jazz situation in East Germany was tied into the Cold war and always depended on what happened between Moscow and Washington. As political relationships went back and forth, so to did the legitimacy of jazz music. “We were right on the border between the Socialist system and the Capitalist system because both came together in Germany. East and West met there. I remember very well when a concert of Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong was in West Berlin and the American General Clay, the boss of the military, announced the next day that ‘with the jazz trumpet we will occupy the Socialist countries!’ This statement was like a declaration of war! And the next day everything concerning jazz was forbidden. Then we went down underground, waiting for the opportunity to come up again.”

That opportunity came with the government changing their policy in a most ironic way, using jazz for political gain. “For instance, when Martin Luther King was shot, Paul Robson, a black gospel and spiritual singer was invited to East Germany. He was one of those classical spiritual singers like Mahalia Jackson. He came with the Golden Gate Quartet. And this performance was a dialectic exchange to say that jazz was ‘the music of the black people, who are the progressive worker class, oppressed by the white capitalists.’ And therefore, we were allowed to come out and play jazz music again. It was the progressive music of the worker class! It’s so funny. It was always like up and down, up and down. It always depended on the political climate.”

Working behind the Iron Curtain, Baby (nicknamed by a friend who thought his playing resembled that of the legendary American swing drummer, Baby Dodds) was not always aware of how well known his music was in the West. He expresses a surprise at the reception he received when he and other East German jazz musicians finally had a chance to play in the West. “In Europe, when I started playing in the beginning of the 80s, FMP (Free Music Productions, based in West Berlin) did good work in advance of when we came. Since 1984 we were always invited to come to some festivals in West Berlin, Moers, and France. Jost Gerbers, who runs the label, spent so much time coming to the East, talking with the administration to convince them that the music of these East German guys was so interesting that the Western world would be pleased to hear them live. It was really 5 or 6 years until we were allowed to come in 1980 and play in a workshop band. It was a ‘who’s who’ of East German jazz musicians. We were recording in studios in East Berlin and he released the records in West Germany and West Europe before we were allowed to go abroad. So in West Germany, France, Italy—all over Europe—I found out there were people who were listening to what was happening behind the iron curtain. In the Western countries we were invited because our first recordings we had done with FMP, a West German label.”

The changing political climate shifted again, as economics became the focus. “And from that moment, the government, the party, and the cultural agency did a change of their thinking, dialectic thinking again. The ideology of the Socialist party was always first, and the economy was second. But at the beginning of the 80s it changed, because they were keen on getting Western currency. They needed it for the economic situation. From that moment, the economy was first and the ideology had to follow it. Then we were allowed to go abroad, bringing Western currency back home. But we couldn’t go as a private person, we were always organized by the State agency that made the contracts and set the percentage—at least half of the money they kept, and sometimes even more. From that moment we were determined as cultural exports, like classical musicians before, because they didn’t have any problems with musicians playing Bach or Mozart. “

In July 1998, Baby played at The National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, Georgia in a trio with trombonist Konrad Bauer and longtime rhythm partner, bassist Peter Kowald. “I was very surprised coming to the United States for the first time. I was in Atlanta, and many, many people would come up and say, ‘We know your music for many years. You’ve never been here and it’s the first time we can hear you live.’ I was really surprised because normally it happens the other way around. All the Americans and black musicians are coming to Europe, and we are going backstage to see how this guy feels, this guy smells...and it was really the other way around. It was such a big impression for me, being as one of only a few white people within all those hundreds of black artists—singers, dancers, actors—it was the Festival for Black National Art, a festival for dancing, music, and theater. We were all put together in one huge hotel and partied all night long; singing, dancing, playing, and laughing. For me it was the first time in my life I was involved in such a melting.”

“One thing that impressed me was the last day. We were supposed to leave at 4 in the afternoon and we were just hanging around. I remembered Atlanta was the city of Martin Luther King. And I went down to the church he was involved in. When I got there, it was a large crowd of black people, all well dressed in their Sunday best, all the people in suits—and I felt a little like I was maybe in the wrong place here. I kept in the back a little bit, but I took all my courage and sneaked into the door and a choir was singing. All the people had settled down. Then I waited in the back and realized that in the 5th or 6th row there was an empty place. It took all my (courage)...yes, if I really want to feel what happens here I have to go directly into the center— and I did it. The first ten minutes were a little (nervous). One black woman on the left hand, one on the right side; I didn’t know how to...my behavior...and then I said, ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m coming here from Europe and I’m invited to the Black National Art Festival and this is the first time I’m here.’ And this totally changed the atmosphere. She introduced herself and after ten minutes we stood up hand to hand, singing and shaking...it was the first time in my life. “

The trio with Bauer and Kowald is documented on a live recording, THREE WHELLS—FOUR DIRECTIONS (Victo), from the 1992 Festival International De Music in Victoriaville, Quebec. The opening track, “Trio Goes East,” shows an amazing amount of sympathetic interplay as they weave their way through various rhythms and moods. Sommer plays with a deftness that keeps the proceedings moving forward, yet he never forces the music. First with brushes, and then with sticks, he meshes with Kowald’s percussive playing to lay down a heavy rhythmic carpet for Bauer’s trombone to dart around on top of. On “Trio Goes West,” Bauer lays down multiphonic drones while Kowald plays similar arco bass drones. Sommer provides the motion by skittering around his kit with brushes. The playing evolves with Sommer playing a steady four on the bass drum, providing an almost martial feel, while Bauer moves around Kowald’s arco bass. “Trio Goes North” opens with arco bass harmonics, high pitched trombone, and Sommer on jaw harp. The rhythmic twang he provides is not out of place with the music.

Sommer’s solo feature, “Baby Goes South,” opens up with a melody on the trumpet like schalmei, leading to pedal blown organ pipes layered under staccato toms. Baby’s melodicism is present in force. While visual humor is often a part of his performance, it is integrated in such a way it doesn’t distract from the music. In a similar vein, the Dutch madman, Han Bennink, uses madcap antics that frequently seem to be more the focus than the music. Sommer often uses his voice or harmonica to play a melodic line imitated on his tuned toms. While he sometimes comes off as a one man band, there is nothing gimmicky about his music.

Günter has been playing solo concerts since the late 1970’s. His repertoire has been an evolution of influences picked up throughout his career. “When I started solo playing, I took everything I could find that sounded and put it together. There was no order at the beginning, just an amount of noise.” But this ‘noise’ came out of a melodic background “because I had a very good relationship with musicians like Peter Kowald, Peter Brötzmann, Alexander Schlippenbach, and all those German and European guys, and the English guys, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey, and the Dutch guys like William Brueker, Han Bennink, and Misha Mengleberg. I also in a way tried to destroy everything that was in my tradition. Afterwards, when I started to play solo, I started to bring all these things in an order. First I started with metal pieces, wooden pieces, skin pieces, toys—I set up a structure of different materials and different sounds. The next step was to bring it in a scale, an intonation. I stopped using all these things just for making noises. Then from that I started bringing in this harmony and melody. I’d thrown away many of the things I couldn’t use anymore.”

“Then I started  making my own instruments, and soon felt that people were watching me and what I was using next. It was an optical focus on me, not the acoustic—for instance, I’d hit a big gong and it would need ten seconds to develop itself, and at the same time I was leaning over, preparing something on the bottom and everyone was, “Oh, what is he taking now?” My instruments I normally use for a solo concert look strange, and this point made me a little bit sad. Then I had the idea to set a curtain in front of my drum kit. And this was the birth moment of so called ‘Hörmusik’, this is music only for listeners, nothing to see. The German word, Hörmusik, is ‘music to listen to.’ I played behind a curtain. And this concept is used for all my solo work. I did three of these Hörmusik recordings. The funny thing is that people came to watch me, saying, ‘I can’t divide the visual sense and the hearing sense. I must see how you produce this sound and that sound. For me, it’s really a psychological problem.’ Other people came and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that percussion can be real music.’ They had to follow the dramaturgy, this composition part 1 and part 2, going from one part to another part, without looking at the instruments. They were just listening as intended.”

“The most provocative thing I did was play a solo concert in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall during the big jazz fest. This was a television concert and I didn’t know the place, so I brought my curtain. When I went into the place, I realized people were sitting in the back, on the right side, on the left side, and in front. I had brought only one curtain. ‘Oh my God...’ But they helped me organize three more curtains. I set up up a kind of box and the TV guys came and said, ‘No, oh no. Could you open it a little bit to let us in with the camera?’ I said, ‘No chance. No compromise. It’s what it is, it’s Baby Sommer behind the curtain. Name it the ‘iron curtain’ or what ever you want. It’s Baby Sommer in the box.’ And that was it for an hour long. For me it was a heavy thing to play in this box. I couldn’t see anybody, and the public couldn’t see me. I was a little bit afraid someone would start to shout, ‘Hey, what nonsense is this?’ Then from that moment, the whole tension would be gone. But it didn’t happen. And I kept the tension for the whole concert and this was the most exciting experience I’ve done with my playing behind the curtain.”

“As for the solo playing, I don’t feel like just a timekeeper percussionist, I’m listening to so many different types of music. For me the musical world is a global village and sometimes when I’m listening to an interesting music it remains in my body and then comes out transformed. So when I play real long solo concerts, sometimes I take you to Africa or somewhere else. It’s not the real original, but it’s something of this. I think about how to start them, how to end, and to have certain points I’m going to and from, that point to go in another direction. But what happens in between is up to the moment. I really try to bring in an order in terms of composition. Because this way improvisation is also a sort of ‘instant composing.’ You are playing and composing when you do it and you have to pay attention to all these things, like counterpoints, dynamics, slow & fast, to keep the whole thing in the right balance.”

Baby’s playing is very much like a story. There are themes and melodies you can come back to, scene changes, and an overall feeling of moving from a starting point to an ending as a connected whole. “Therefore I have such a close relationship with book writers. Like my friendship with author Günter Grass. It was a new situation for me when I started working with people who are working with words. I developed a very good relationship with Günter Grass. We were working 18 years ago and I found his story, THE TIN DRUM. And his book is my story. I offered to do it together and we soon agreed, started to record, then we went on tour. It’s funny, he’s really reading like a musician, he comes ‘towards’ me and we are in a kind of competition. When he is reading, going up to a kind of climax, he stops because he can’t go further on...so I take it over. When I bring it down, or I stop, he immediately, at the right moment, enters...and it’s really very musical.”

“Right now we are making a new program about his last book that won the Nobel prize (MYCENTURY). We had a concert together at the Frankfurt Book Fair ten days ago. We were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do a new program.’ He’s 72 years old, but in fine shape with good energy. For MY CENTURY, he wrote one short story for every year—1901 until 1999. When we are working together he always says, ‘I can read every page I wrote. What influences you? What is interesting for you? You have to decide.’ So it’s really up to me to read his 700 pages, THE TIN DRUM, and THE FISH, such a thick book. I read these books, picking out these parts that are interesting for our work together. So I make a kind of manuscript, we come together, and I propose, ‘I would like to do this chapter and that chapter...’ So it’s up to me now to pick out the stories from his new book that are interesting. We’ve done many recordings. The last one, THE FISH, was a well made double CD with a booklet of photographs.”

“So years ago when he went to India, I started working with authors, actors, and other writers. Then I started working with dancers. Dancers are really something else. You feel like you could play solo, but there are other noises on stage around you. You think you are playing a solo concert, but you have to consider the energy of movement. You have to be ready to consider where the movement starts and where it ends. It’s really something very special, something interesting. I stretch out by working with other people.”

Baby continues to work in a wide variety of musical situations, expanding his horizons beyond the curtain. “Here again [in Columbus],  people are coming and they know the records I’m involved in. They know my music and my name. This is a big surprise. It’s a good feeling because, you know, fighting and working all those 10, 20, 30 years and not being heard somewhere else, it’s quite a good feeling to get some fruits after all that labor.”

Baby Sommer on YouTube

Selected Discography

Günter Sommer

Säshsische Schatulle-Hörmusik III  1993  Intakt

Floros Floridis/Peter Kowald/Günter Sommer

Aphorisms  1997  KATO

Konrad Bauer Trio

Three Wheels-Four Directions  1993  Victo

Cecil Taylor/Günter Sommer

Riobec  1989  FMP

In East Berlin  1988  FMP

Irène Schweizer/Günter Sommer

Duo  1987  Intakt

Peter Brötzmann/Barre Phillips/Günter Sommer

Reserve   1988  FMP

Gianni Gebbia

Cappuccini King  1992  Splasc(h)

Peter Kowald/Wadada Leo Smith/Günter Sommer

Touch The Earth-Break The Shells  1981  FMP

Mario Schiano

And So On  1991  Splasc(h)

Zentral Quartet

Plie  1996  Intakt

Careless Love  1998  Intakt

© 2000 Michael Bettine - used with permission