Jazz at the Stadtkeller with Nord-Süd

The four jazz musicians have been friends for over three decades and regularly perform together on Swiss stages in a wide variety of line-ups. In 1997, they toured Italy as the group “Testa Libera”. What began last year as a revival of jam sessions amongst four friends has developed into an ongoing musical dialogue. The quartet presents a hand-picked programme on stage: the musicians interpret standards from the Great American Songbook and combine them with the warm, melancholic and rousing sounds of Brazilian Música Popular. Look forward to an energetic concert experience full of spontaneity.

Daniel Schenker, trumpet and flugelhorn, grew up in Dietikon and has been performing with his own quartet for over 25 years. He has released four albums, two of them with the American saxophonist Chris Cheek. The quartet performed in Haiti in 2014. He has given concerts and toured as a freelancer with Kenny Werner, Joe Haider, George Gruntz and Bill Holman, amongst many others. Together with his son, he began developing the aural training app ‘ET – Ear Trainer’ in 2020. Schenker teaches trumpet and aural training at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Roberto Bossard began to place the guitar at the centre of his work in 1983. He sees himself as a guitarist with roots in the jazz tradition, without neglecting the present day and its contemporary playing styles. Roberto Bossard has played with William Evans, Sal Nistico and Simon Nabatov, but also performs regularly with his own bands. He won the ‘Jazz Reader Poll’ organised by the magazine ‘Jazz & Culture’ as the best Swiss jazz guitarist of 1998 and worked as a lecturer in jazz guitar at the Lucerne School of Music until the summer of 2024.

Herbie Kopf began teaching himself to play the electric bass in 1978. It wasn’t long before established Swiss musicians such as Daniel Schnyder, JoJo Mayer, Harald Haerter and Bruno Spoerri invited him to join their bands. In 1982, he made his first extended stay in New York; afterwards, he launched his own projects and bands with renowned international top musicians such as Jack Walrath, Jerry Gonzalez, Seamus Blake, Alex Sipiagin, Mark Turner and George Gruntz. Some of his more than 300 original compositions have been released on 20 albums to date under his own name. Herbie Kopf has been teaching at the Jazz Department of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts since 1996.

Elmar Frey has been working as a drummer on the Swiss jazz scene for over 30 years. Drawing stylistically on hard bop and soul jazz, he has developed into a musical personality in his own right. In his own projects (Seven Colors, Power Grid), he also takes on the roles of composer and arranger. He has toured throughout Europe and performed at many international jazz festivals. In the process, he has shared the stage with numerous jazz greats, including Benny Golson, James Carter, Barry Harris and the New York Voices.