This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on July 11, 2024. To receive Josef Woodard's music newsletter in your inbox on Fridays, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
Picture yourself on a boat on a river. Free-ranging sounds call you; you listen quite raptly, to artists with kaleidoscope ears.
The picturesque process became a special reality for me last week at the invitation of the unique Monheim Trienniale II , taking place mostly on the docked good ship MS RheinFantasie. No, this was not your father/mother or son/daughter’s cruise ship diversion, but an intrepid experiment with social and inclusive implications beyond the notes and musical collaborations involved. Sixteen fine and innately adaptable and improvisation-ready musicians were pulled from a global rolodex of possibilities, including the famed trumpet master Peter Evans, saxist-deserving-wider-recognition Darius Jones, eminent German new music composer and pianist Heiner Goebbels, and up-and-comers from many worldly locales.
This still-young and unique variation on the jazz festival theme takes place in the Rhine River–hugged small (43,000 pop.) city of Monheim, between the urban outposts of Dusseldorf and Cologne, and a world away in many ways. A pleasant ambling walk along the Rhine and inward takes you to the humble old town (Altstadt), for a delectable dinner at the Ohter restaurant or the proverbial schnitzel plate at Pfannenhof. Meanwhile, the Trienniale’s musical fare and intentions are anything but quaint.
