Joachim-Ernst Berendt (20 July 1922 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

– 4 February 2000 in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

) was a German music journalist, author and producer specialized on

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

Life

Berendt's father, Ernst Berendt, was a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

belonging to the

Confessing Church The Confessing Church (german: link=no, Bekennende Kirche, ) was a movement within German Protestantism during Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German ...

who was imprisoned and died in the

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. J.-E. Berendt started studying Physics, but his studies were interrupted by his enlistment to the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

. Already during the

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

years Berendt took an interest in

; enthusiasts in this period retreated to the underground. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he helped founding the Südwestfunk (SWF) radio network in the then French occupation zone of Germany. From 1950 until his retirement in 1987, he was in charge of the jazz department of the SWF. In 1952, the first German edition of Berendt's ''Jazz Book'' was published. It became a definitive book on jazz translated into many languages and is still being updated and reprinted. For almost 40 years, Berendt produced the jazz program of the

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...

station of the German public radio and TV network ARD. His weekly TV show ''Jazztime Baden-Baden'' and his daily radio shows were pioneer work in promoting jazz in post-war Germany. Berendt later focused on world music and was one of its early promoters, founding a World Music Festival in 1965. Berendt initiated and organized many jazz festivals ( American Folk Blues Festival, Berliner Jazztage, World Expo Osaka). He was the producer of many records, mainly for MPS Records, and supported the ''Jazz & Lyrik'' project, combining jazz performances with readings of poetry (not jazz poetry). Berendt was awarded, amongst others, the critic's award of German television, the culture award of Poland, and twice the Bundesfilmpreis. Berendt died on 4 February 2000 at the age of 77 after a traffic accident which he was involved in as a pedestrian. The accident happened in Hamburg, Berendt was on his way to a book promotion for his book ''Es gibt keinen Weg nur Gehen'' (''There Is No Way, Only Going''). Berendt's huge collection of records, books, magazines, photos and more is in the archive of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.

Later work

In 1983, Berendt published ''The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma'' and ''The Third Ear: On Listening to the World''. In these books Berendt investigates in listening in general, i.e. its medical, historical, physical, cultural and philosophical aspects. This turn to philosophy also saw him becoming a disciple of the Indian mystic Osho.Joachim Süss, Bhagwans Erbe, p.27

Works (selection)

* "Jazz: A Photo History." (Translated by William Odom), Schirmer Books 1979, . *Joachim-Ernst Berendt reads

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogn ...

"Seelenlandschaften" (Landscapes of the Soul), with music from Philip Catherine, Krzysztof Zgraja,

Vladislav Sendecki Vladyslav Sendecki, known as Vladislav Sendecki, (born 1955 in Gorlice) is a Polish jazz pianist. In Polish, his name is spelled Władysław Sendecki. Since 1996 he has been permanently associated with the NDR Big Band as a composer and pianist. ...

Bibliography

* ''The Jazz Book'', Lawrence Hill & Company, New York * ''The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma: Music and the Landscape of Consciousness'', Inner Traditions * ''The Third Ear: On Listening to the World'' *''Klangräume'' (1996) *
The Return of Jazz: Joachim-Ernst Berendt and West German Cultural Change
', Andrew Wright Hurley
Berghahn Books
(2011)

References

External links