Change of Beauty

Beauty is a question of view. For some it consists in perfection, symmetry; others perceive it only when ruptures, cracks, relativizations add to the impression. Herbert Joos has called his orchestra suite, which he premiered on the occasion of being awarded the 2017 Baden-Wurttemberg Jazz Prize for Lifetime Achievement, Change of Beauty. This fits a process of musical creation that the star chef and bass trumpeter Vincent Klink laconically commented upon his encomium at the award ceremony at the Stuttgart Theaterhaus as follows: I assert at this point that perfection curtails freedom and completely runs counter to a humanism of the Joosian kind. Ergo, beauty can endure only in a state of flux. An insight that coincides with Herbert Joos's experience in the course of a dazzling career as a musician. The trumpeter, flugelhorn player and composer appeared on the jazz scene at a time when certainties were crumbling. Born in 1940 and influenced by musical individualists like Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Billie Holiday, Joos first learned the craft of imitation in ensembles such as the Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe, but at the same time experienced the beginnings of the aesthetic resistance. In no time at all he sent jazz tradition packing into the museum.