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Barbara Jungfer

bio

Barbara Jungfer, born 1968 in Berlin/West, fell in love with the guitar at age 11. Studying the acoustic instrument first with local music school teacher Wolfgang Lewerenz, she soon taught herself how to accompany Beatles-Songs with chords, which led her teacher to show her some fingerpicking-arrangements of these tunes and later on Ragtime- and Blues- arrangements. Becoming familiar with the Blues, she chose the electric guitar as her instrument at age 16 and imitated Blues guitarists like B.B. King and Albert King. Not much later, she discovered Jazz and Jazz Rock, and mostly inspired by seeing live concerts in Berlin in the mid 80ies, began to study this kind of music by any means available - recordings, books, single lessons with local musicians (among them Nick Katzman, Jörg Schippa, Martin Haensel and Walter Norris), jamming with other guitarists, jazz band workshops and last not least sitting in in countless jam sessions. More playing experience in various jazz bands followed, ranging from duo with saxophonist Tina Wrase over a fusion quartet playing 80ies Jazz Rock to the Flintstones BigBand playing Count Basie Swing. Her musical influences derive from a variety of styles and players, among them Jim Hall and Pat Metheny as well as B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix, up to John Scofield, Mike Stern and Mick Goodrick. Being accepted at the renowned jazz department of the Musikhochschule Köln (Cologne) in 1992, she soon started to lead her own groups, mostly small ensembles that gave the guitar enough room to unfold. At the same time and over the years, Barbara has developped her skills as a composer, her tunes often characterized by memorable melodic lines colored by modern harmonies, still spiced here and there with a good spoonful of Blues. She received grants for the Siena Jazz Seminar/Italy in 1996/class of Enrico Rava, and the Banff Centre For The Arts Jazzworkshop/Canada in 1998 w. Kenny Werner, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Don Thompson and John Stowell.

With all these experiences and influences and a diploma in jazz guitar, Barbara moved back to Berlin in 1998. That same year she founded her Hammond Organ Trio "Vitamin B3", of which the debut-CD was released in 2001 (yvp-music). Freelancing in the field of jazz and improvised music, she worked with many musicians of the Berlin jazz scene and beyond. In 2004, she won the studio contest by the Berliner Senat with an experimental duo w. tuba player Pauline Boeykens, interpreting the writings of Gertrude Stein. In 2005, her second CD, a quintet setting featuring pianist Anke Helfrich called "Berlin Spirits", was released in cooperation with RBB (Radio Berlin-Brandenburg) and the label minor music. Her group was part of the concert series "Wir Jazzwunderkinder" (minor music). That same year she got invited by the Goethe Institut to the international "Festival Des Instruments A Cordes" in Rabat/Marokko. In 2006, she received a grant by the Berliner Senat for a composer's residence in New York. In 2007, the collaboration with guitarist Peter O'Mara began, touring Clubs in New South Wales/Australia in duo and quartet, lately founding the groups "Double Guitar Project" and "Three Way Conversation" (JIM-Jazzfest Munich 2010). Not willing to bend her ideas to commercial needs of some bigger labels, her third CD, "Going Places", a jazz quartet with Florian Trübsbach-sax, Scott White/Henning Sieverts-bass, Christoph Schlemmer/Guido May-dr, was released in 2008 by the Berlin Indie-Label phonector. An invitation by Auroville-based violinist Holger Jetter brought her to India in 2009. The quartet with bassist Keith Peters and drummer Jeoraj George played a three-week tour all over India including concerts at Indigo Jazz & Blues Festival Bangalore and Congo Square Jazzfest Kolkata. Barbara also collaborated with Canadian guitarist Margaret Stowe in 2010, touring and playing festivals in Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and Norway.
In 2011, she was invited to join the "Europe Blues Train" Festival Berlin/Prague, in a formation with Jan Korinek/Hammond B3 and Martin Novak/dr.
Other musicians she has played with are a.o. Helmut Brandt, NDR Pops Orchestra, Berlin BigBand and Klaus Doldinger's Passport. Barbara has also been working for the Saarländisches Staatstheater/Saarbruck (1998) and the Munich based theatre group Tollhaus Compagnia (2011).
Barbara is currently living in Munich.