HENNING PERTIET sings and plays - Die größten Hits aus 100 Jahren Blues & Boogie Woogie

In the organizer's words:

The Hamburg-born musician has been celebrating his love of this music on the piano and vocal chords for 37 years. Henning Pertiet is not interested in nostalgia or museum reproduction, but in the lively retelling of a music that has shaped people for generations - emotionally, socially and culturally.

This evening focuses on the most influential pieces - the "hits" - from around 100 years of blues and boogie-woogie history. Henning Pertiet not only plays them, but also puts them in context, tells their stories, backgrounds and contexts and thus makes it possible to hear why this music still has an impact today.

"Henning is one of the leading pianists of the genre worldwide and a figurehead of German blues piano."

Says none other than THE boogie master par excellence: Axel Zwingenberger. This judgment comes not only from collegial appreciation, but from decades of knowledge of the international scene.

In 2017, Henning Pertiet was honored with the highest award in German blues:
He won the GERMAN BLUES AWARD for Best German Blues Pianist. A recognition that underlines his exceptional position within the genre.

The music - listen, understand, experience

Henning Pertiet's music is based on elements of early blues and classic boogie woogie from the 1920s to the 1940s. This music is characterized by rhythmic energy, narrative power and a directness that still has an immediate effect today.

The original form of this music originated in the USA in the early 1900s, with both colored and white musicians creating this music. (The first jazz recording was actually made by a white jazz band on shellac in 1917). From the beginning, blues and boogie woogie were an expression of a multi-layered society and reflected the realities of life, hopes and conflicts.

It was an insane time full of vibrant life - despite or perhaps because of difficult economic and social circumstances. Music was omnipresent and developed rapidly in ever new directions. Clubs, dance halls and radio stations became experimental fields for new styles, rhythms and forms of expression.

From 1935 to 1945, boogie woogie was the pop music of the young Americans: a music that emerged from blues and swing elements and which "forced" at least one boogie woogie from musicians of almost every genre at the time. Even Art Tatum or Erroll Garner included boogies in their repertoire, and every big band "had to" play this fast blues. Boogie woogie was the motor, driver and common denominator at the same time.

In the heyday of boogie woogie, it was pianists such as Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis who, as outstanding representatives of the genre, raised the bar to a level that is still unrivaled today. Together with Big Joe Turner, the blues shouter from Kansas City, they also performed at Carnegie Hall in 1938 - a historic moment and the international breakthrough of this music.

A special feature of this evening is that Henning Pertiet not only tells this story, but makes it audible:
He brings along a traveling gramophone and plays original shellac records from that time - such as "Pinetop's Boogie", one of the original hits of the genre. This makes it possible to directly experience how this music originally sounded and the spirit from which it originated.

In Europe - and especially in Germany - swing and boogie woogie were initially unable to spread. The Second World War was raging and black rhythms were considered "degenerate" in National Socialist Germany. It was only decades later that this music was able to gain a foothold here. A great blues wave swept through Europe in the 1960s; Germany, Austria and Switzerland experienced it at the beginning of the 1970s.

At that time, pianists such as Axel Zwingenberger, Vince Weber, Georg Möller (all from Hamburg) and Martin Pyrker(Vienna) set about learning the art of blues and boogie piano from old recordings, cultivating this tradition and, not least, developing their own musical identity. They built a bridge between the American original and the European signature.

They even made it into the national charts and were regularly featured on the evening television program, which was still the main program at the time - proof of the power and topicality of this music.

Henning Pertiet thus belongs to the second generation of today's pianists of this genre. He has - for this genre and in this day and age - had an extraordinary "career" (if one can even speak of a career in this context):
He was the pianist of the legendary Austrian Mojo Blues Band for four years, accompanied blues greats such as Abi Wallenstein, Louisiana Red, Keith Dunn, Janice Harrington, Red Holloway and others and played hundreds of concerts throughout Europe - with friends and colleagues such as Gottfried Böttger, Axel Zwingenberger, Vince Weber etc. pp.

In Bremen, Henning Pertiet presents a program of the greatest hits of the last 100 years in blues and boogie woogie - a musical journey through a century of blues history, told, explained, heard and played, condensed into one evening, personally interpreted and performed with great narrative power.

All too often today, for the sake of success, slapstick performances are placed in the foreground instead of using one's own personality to bring content to life.
However, Henning Pertiet has perfected the latter like hardly anyone else in the current global scene of this genre. His concerts thrive on authenticity, depth and the direct connection between musician, music and audience.

This promises to be a unique concert experience.