Dima Bondarev - Trumpet (UKR)
Charles Fréchette - Guitar (CAN)
Laurent Humeau - Guitar (FRA)
James Banner - Bass (UK)

 The Zig Zag is proud to announce a brand new and fresh Sunday concert series that showcases a community of jazz artists responsible for bringing about an explosion of energy and life into the Berlin jazz scene. The series will feature some of the most in demand, highly skilled and exciting young jazz talents in the scene today. These young masters have taken the jazz scene by surprise by packing in the clubs and bringing back to life a love and passion for hard swinging music. Performances are completely acoustic with little to no amplification. Subtle interaction, melodic focus and soulful virtuosity is at play here. If you’re interested in listening to some of the finest swinging sounds of jazz this is not an event to miss out on. 

Sunday 08.09.19

An evening of jazz manouche, a style developed by the luminary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1930s Paris. The classic swinging ensemble of two guitars and bass will be elevated by the addition of the ever popular Berlin-based trumpeter Dima Bondarev, playing select standards and pieces composed and popularised by Django, Stéphane Grappelli and others.

Dima Bondarev
Born in 1984 in Ukraine, Dima Bondarev began playing the trumpet at the age of 9. He discovered his passion for Jazz after initially studying classical music as a child. Since 2013 Bondarev has been based in Berlin where he undertook both Batchelor and Master studies at the Jazz Institut Berlin (JIB) with Gerard Presencer. Bondarev’s own group, the Dima Bondarev Quintet, has performed at festivals all around Europe including the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy, Xjazz Festival in Germany, Jazz nad Odra in Poland, Jazz Bez in Ukraine and Poland and Jazz à Montauban in France. His debut Album “I’m Wondering” won the 2nd price of ’50th Jazz and Odra festival’ in Wroclaw (Poland, 2014), the 1st Price of Festival de Jazz à Montauban (France, 2014), and the JIB-Jazz-Preis 2015 Der Karl Hofer Gesellschaft Gestiftet von Toni und Albrecht Kumm. The band was also presented at the Umbria Jazz Festival as a special guest. As a sideman Dima has collaborated with Greg Cohen, Joey Baron, Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre, Nels Cline, Jim Black, Dana Hall, NDR Big Band, Josh Ginsburg, Wanja Slavin, Elias Stemeseder and many others.

Charles Fréchette 
Born in 1988, Charles Fréchette is a musician and composer originally from Montréal, Canada.
Professional musician since 2004, Charles is known mainly as a guitar player, but also as a composer, singer, mandolin player and music teacher. This exceptional musician got an international reputation while playing extended tours around the world totaling thousands of concerts in more than 30 countries with his band Tcha-Badjo. Twice winner of the Jazz guitar grant of the International Jazz Festival of Montreal in 2011 and 2012 and also of the Montréal Guitar Grand Prix in 2012. Charles graduated 7 years of Jazz studies at University of Montréal and Cegep de Drummondville in 2012 and his now studying a master degree in music teaching at l’HEMU in Lausanne in 2018. In parallel of his musical carrer, Charles is also director and programmor of the concert hall of l’Auberge des Vergers in Meyrin since 2018. Charles now lives between Lausanne and Berlin and plays regularly with his bands Tcha-Badjo, Echoes of Django, Samy Daussat & the 12th Street Rag and also playing alongside other artists such as Tcha Limberger, David Boulanger, Giacomo Smith, Sebastien Giniaux, Antoine Boyer, Bina Coquet, Les poissons Voyageurs and many others. Charles is sponsored by the luthiers Alain Mazaud and Esteban Gonzalez.

Laurant Humeau
A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Laurent has participated in a wide variety of musical projects across Europe. Active in the swing scene since 2009, he plays manouche guitar, traditional jazz clarinet, and trumpet in projects such as Django Lassi, Gypsy Gentlemen, Musicomaniacs, Dizzybirds, and The Jungle.

James Banner
James Banner was born in Dudley, England and is now based in Berlin and the UK, working around Europe as a musician, composer and educator. His main project James Banner’s USINE has been described as “revelling in both avant-garde and swing”, “unobvious and unpredictable” as well as “intense and dramatic… gentle and beautiful… full of drama”, and has received support from both the Berlin State and Initiative Musik. As a composer he received the prestigious Elsa Neumann Stipendium in 2018 from the Berlin University of the Arts/HfM Hanns Eisler, supporting the ambitious project Voices of Berlin, interviewing residents of Berlin and reflecting their stories through music for improvising choir and ensemble. James has been featured in portraits by Der Tagesspiegel and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and was recently selected to be a part of Making Music’s Adopt A Composer scheme, composing the collaborative piece Concertino For Concert Band with premiere performances in late 2019 and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast in 2020. James is a Lecturer at Leeds College of Music, composer in residence for Make The Paint Dance, and workshop leader for Jazzlines at Symphony Hall Birmingham, and active as a co-leader and sideman in projects in the jazz and improvised music scenes of Berlin, also regularly being selected to take part in collaborative projects further afield such as Fish and Chips at Leipziger Jazztage 2018 and Jazz Alloy at the Vortex, London. He also co-curates the monthly residency Practically Married at Berlin’s Donau115, voted one of Europe’s best jazz clubs by The Guardian.

Konzert Beginn um 21:00 Uhr (Einlass 20:00 Uhr)
Eintritt frei – Beitrag erwünscht

Sitzplatzreservierung

ENTRANCE FEES
One of the reasons that makes the zig zag jazz club so unique is that it is the first and only jazz club in the world that manages to finance world class events through a crowd funding concept. How do we do it? Its quite simple… during the break of the concert we make an announcement regarding the collection for the evening. For most concerts (excluding the jam session) we inform our customers that a fee of around 15€ per person will allow us to fairly compensate the musicians. Some people give more and some give less… and that´s ok… we ´ve already successfully promoted hundreds of concerts like this!!!