In 1962, students at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena founded a jazz band. The Old Time Memory Jazzband still exists today and has remained true to its roots: two-beat jazz, as played by Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. The lineup has changed several times, but the style has remained the same.
Trumpet, clarinet, and trombone form the melody section and improvise collectively, each instrument with its clear role: the trumpet leads, the clarinet embellishes, and the trombone provides counterpoint and glissandi. Banjo, piano, and sousaphone maintain the two-part rhythm. Besides New Orleans jazz, the band also cultivates Chicago Dixieland, and multi-part vocals expand the tonal palette. The leader is trumpeter Gunnar Besen, and alongside him are, among others, Thomas Kniese on clarinet, Dietmar Jung on trombone, and Rainer Pratzka on sousaphone.
The band has a long history with Dresden. They played at the International Dixieland Festival in 1974 and 1980, and later returned as an official participant. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, they collaborated with the philharmonic orchestras in Jena and Stendal and performed in Czechoslovakia and Georgia.
In 1996, she traveled to New Orleans for the first time for the "22nd Jazz Reunion Fest," followed by a second trip for the 40th anniversary. At the Riverboat Jazz Festival in Silkeborg, Denmark, she shared the stage with Jacques Gauthé, the New Orleans clarinetist and soprano saxophonist who had studied with Sidney Bechet. She participated twice in the International New Orleans Jazz Competition in Saint-Raphaël, France.
Among the most unusual venues is the cavern of the Markersbach pumped-storage power plant in the Ore Mountains, deep inside the mountain. She has also performed in the courtyard of the University of Jena together with the Jubilee Singers, at the Cotton Club in Hamburg, and on a lightship. For many years, she also collaborated with the Jena-based mime artist Harald Seime on a program.
Three CDs document their journey, including "Dixieland Doin's" and, for their 50th anniversary, "Glimpses of a New Century." In 2022, the band celebrated its 60th anniversary with a gala concert in Jena, and their sousaphone still sounds as if it's leading a parade.
