The Band ...   

 Sept. 14th 2008 at the "Zehnthof" in Erftstadt-Lechenich

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Our name Jazz for Fun expresses the playful, 'just-for-fun' joy that unites 40 amateur and professional musicians brought together in the summer of 1999 by music school director Peter Estl. Our name like our music has matured quickly to better ex press our true identity. Our original name was an awkward and contrived acronym ERWIN derived from 'ERWachsene (grownups) IN a Big Band'. Actually, the response to Estl's visionary call generated such a response that a Monday group and a Thursday Group were formed. But the Thursday group didn't want to play in public known by such a "homemade" moniker.So the name game adjourned to a favorite pub. Perhaps some of the worst, most obscure group name candidates can be blamed on the beer--'Kruses Krücken', (Kruse's Crutches) and 'Die dritten Zähne', (Third Set of False Teeth). Yet happily "Jazz for Fun" emerged with concensus approval--one of our earliest succesful collaborations. With such auspicious decision-making behind us, it took our bandleader, Dietmar Kruse, a skilled teacher of trombone at Erftstadt's Music School only months to weld this rag-tag diversity into an integrated, syncopated ensemble with a sound of it's own-- a sound well worth hearing 'just for fun'.

(We thank Tim Leach, St. Louis, Mo., USA for his assistance with this translation.)

our bandleader:  Dietmar Kruse