Jazzkantine is is a musical collective founded in 1993 in Braunschweig, Germany. Their first album, Jazzkantine , released in October 1994 won the “Echo Award” in 1996, the most important award for German music.I first heard them during dinner at the home of a member of another German band, TreSimul, quite sucessfull during the late 1990´s. It was love at first heard.

Just like Nouvelle Cuisine, Jazzkantine also uses gastronomic analogies to describe the sound proposal of Matthias Lanzer, owner of the Rap Nation label. The team includes rappers Aleksey, Cappuccino and Tachiles, and producers Ole Sander (DJ) and Christian Eitner (bassist). The result can be defined as a mix of fusion, jazz, funk and German rap. Their albums also featured partnerships with international jazz musicians.

In addition to their first album, I also have their follow-up work, Heiss und Fettig (1995). Awesome music, the kind that you have to check out, trust me.

It is noteworthy that as of 2016, the titles of the Jazzkantine albums no longer contain references to gastronomy, and their latest release, Discotheque (2022), moves even further towards a change of direction. The group embodied one of the strongest trends of the time in the world of music: collective projects, but as many similar projects, they needed to readapt with the arrival of the self-centered 2000s.

I am not talking here about the transition from physical music to digital format, but rather about something that has become a kind of collective mentality, consolidated through the expansion of the tools provided by the internet to produce and consume music.

Dazzled by the idea that we were now all living in a new era of equal conditions of production and dissemination, the musical community moved away from the modus operandi that characterized the collectives and embarked on projects that, although musically increasingly similar to each other, are now sold as “unique experiences”.

Well, it is (past) time to admit that the golden days of no gatekeepers (if they ever existed) are gone. Even if a few names raised and nourished their audiences on the early days of social networks by keeping a rather quantitative than qualitative production, these same names had to turn to some kind of “paid content” strategy in order to have their material visible.

After all, the gatekeepers have not disappeared! They just outsourced the service, and since then, they are stronger than ever. Our entire focus now is trying to understand and to please this new entity: the “almighty” algorithm.

Maybe that is why we no longer have time to collectively appreciate the fine products servend on the jazz canteens.

Be seeing you!

G.F.