Jens Gebel
Jens Gebel, the sound painter of jazz, who as a composer and arranger writes his pieces for the musicians on “the instrument”. He has been working in the various facets of the music business for over 30 years. He looks back on a wide-ranging award portfolio as a blind musician, such as “STYLIST OF THE YEAR”, MIT Los Angeles, GERMAN JAZZAWARD , Bassist of the Year German Rock and Pop Award, ZMF Sponsorship Award.
Debut CD “Tunesday”: South American sound for all seasons — composer and musician Jens Gebel presents his audience with a wide range of sounds as a “sound painter” in a quartet
When you listen to his compositions on his debut CD “Tunesday”, you are momentarily reminded of relaxed summer evenings or South American nights. And there is a reason for this, because Jens Gebel, who was born in the Black Forest, was drawn to Los Angeles at the age of 23, where he performed with guitar greats Scott Henderson, Jacob Phillips and Joe Dioro and studied at the Musicians Institute.
The blind autodidact also discovered his love of Brazilian music there, playing with many Brazilian musicians. His performance at the MI with Carol Rogers is legendary. The cheerfulness and positive energy of the Brazilian grooves and melodies inspired him to found the “Jens Gebel Quartet”. Beautiful melodies as well as harmonic and rhythmic sophistication are very important to him. He wants to bring the spirit of Brazilian music, combined with melodious jazz, to a wider audience.
At the same time, there is something about his compositions that echoes the lightness of the transatlantic variety of sounds of George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein.
In 2023, he recorded a debut CD with the “Jens Gebel Quartet”. Alongside Jens Gabel as bassist and band leader are: Michael Arlt, guitar, Domenic Landolf, bass clarinet and saxophones and Daniel Schay, pandeiro.
Jens Gebel says about his quartet:
“… the most important thing for me was to form a band with its own sound with recognition value. I achieved this through the special selection of the instruments pandeiro, bass clarinet and micro bass as well as the skilled playing of the instrumentalists. I wanted to make handmade music with few technical aids — the music should be very relaxed and pleasant to listen to, even for listeners who are not used to jazz. At the same time, the atmospheric pieces and improvisations are a nice challenge for us musicians.”
With “Tunesday”, Jens Gebel demonstrates that he creates his own band sound with his band and that everyone shares his enthusiasm for this style. He himself says: “I want to create previously unheard soundscapes with my music…”
Furthermore, he lives with his wife, saxophonist Veronica Reiff, in Freiburg. There they run the “citysoundstudio”. Jens Gebel is also committed to accessibility by enabling blind people to access the digital world. Since 2010, he and Veronica Reiff have been offering courses on how to use computers, smartphones, and music programs with screen readers on the website www.zumsprechendenapfel.de. Since then, they have held more than a hundred training courses in Germany and Austria.