Riverboat Control
The ships glide past, but the music also comes from the riverbank. At Riverboat-Control, a brass band in the beer garden at Gare de la Lune welcomes the Riverboat-Shuffle parade. On the Elbe, festively flagged paddle steamers and saloon ships carry the festival bands, while on land jazz has its own place. You do not need a deck for this view of the fleet: the beer garden is right on the Elbe.
Welcoming them is part of the tradition of the evening. As long as the parade passes by, the brass band plays on the riverbank. The idea reverses the perspective of the Shuffle: this time the ships are not the concert hall themselves, but the musical counterpart on the water. The Elbe lies between them, and jazz connects both sides.
For Xarals Dixie, this change is very concrete. The Portuguese band played on board the MS „August der Starke“ at the Riverboat-Shuffle in 2025. Now they are part of the concert in the hall that follows the parade. So it is from ship to riverbank — and from the passing fleet to the stage inside the venue. Also taking part is Gunhild Carling, who comes from Sweden with her family. They have already been festival guests with Oldtime Jazz. Two reunions now shape the line-up for the second part of the evening.
Gare de la Lune in Wachwitz brings its own history to the combination of being outdoors and music in the hall. Since its conversion into an inn with a hall in 1872, the building has been part of the history of Dresden’s excursion restaurants. Club, school and garden festivals found a fitting setting here. At Riverboat-Control, the beer garden and the hall once again merge into one: first the welcome by the river, then the concert with guests from Portugal and Sweden.
Jazz and paddle steamers have known each other for a long time. In the 1910s and 1920s, bands played on the Mississippi excursion steamers; the young Louis Armstrong gained valuable experience in Fate Marables Band. Riverboat-Shuffle, launched in 1995 for the 25th festival, picks up on this connection on the Elbe. Riverboat-Control adds its own evening ashore to the mix. When the parade moves on, the music here is far from over.
No festival finale would be complete without the Dixieland-Parade – and this is a sight that stays in the memory: up to two dozen units, hundreds of participants, tens of thousands of spectators lining the parade route from the start at the former Carola-Brücke along Terrassenufer through the historic city center.
The Dixieland-Parade is traditional jazz in its most vibrant, most authentic form, because jazz was literally born in the street; the marching-band legacy emerged in the funeral processions and festive parades of New Orleans in the early 20th century. Anyone standing along the route today and hearing the sound of a brass band coming toward them experiences a direct echo of that history. And anyone lucky enough to look down from the Brühlsche Terrasse onto Terrassenufer sees the panorama of this parade against the backdrop of the old town of Dresden.
The parade belongs to the city and to everyone in it.