This intimate concert was scheduled for Sunday the 10th of June 2001. Even though it was late at night ( 10 pm ) it brought about 200 fans, friends, and colleagues, as well as musical and jazz lovers to Bremen's Musicaltheatre.

There where many different expectations of the concert and as many different opinions after it. Ethan's die-hard fans might have wished for more Ethan and less jazz, since he didn't start singing until an hour into the concert. Nevertheless, I want to tell you my very own impressions about that evening, and I have to confess that I'm anything but an expert in jazz music. Yet, I like each kind of music as long as it is good and heartfelt and so I heard something special and quite terrific that evening.

Ethan starred in this concert performance along with Rolf Kühn playing the clarinet and Till Brönner playing the trumpet. After a short speech by Rene Meyer Brede, the director of the theatre, the band did an opening number and then Brönner and Kühn started to present their repertoire. At this early point I wasn't aware of the facts that those two talents are already living legends and leading personalities in the German jazz industry. It was very impressive and quite easy to believe while listening to their music. After a few minutes the audience was swinging and gave the musicans lots of applause.

Kühn and Brönner played a program of hot jazz and a high musical level with some standards like "Bye Bye Black Bird", but also new songs like the title song of Kühn's newly-released CD, "Freaky Eyes". Besides that, they did a play along of quite amusing improvisations, like the world's fastest version of the "Flintstones" theme song. Then, after an hour of hot jazz music, Ethan came onstage to sing title number 6, a song called "Nothing for me, but to love you". It was great to hear Ethan doing something totally different, without the big and loud tunes of the modern musicals, but with soft, silent sounds. Ethans voice doesn't lose anything of its fascination, it even gains some suspense. It was also interesting to see no Jekyll or Hyde, no Javert and no Phantom or Beast but just Ethan himself. It was very personal, especially because Ethan gave us a look into his very own compositions. The second song was written by himself. Inspired by the last beach holiday in Formentera ( Spain ), he wrote a wonderful song called "In the dark" (It´s good to know that Ethan is relaxing there again, right as this is being written). Sometimes Ethan sang his songs all alone with the band, sometimes together with Brönner or Kühn on their instruments, like the song "When Sunny Gets Blue" with Kühn on the clarinet. After that the 3 of them did a play out into the night and the intermission. Duringthe break I heard more positive than negative thoughts about the concert.

The 2nd half went by very quickly. Brönner introduced us with his trumpet to his "Secret love" and Ethan went back to the roots with the musical song "Old devil Moon" ( at least most of the traditional musicals are based on the elements of jazz music ). After the song "Beware my foolish heart" where Ethan got lots of applause for his powerful voice, all of the 3 musicians said goodbye to the audience with "Just friends". In this song each musican could show his specific talent as well as their perfect haromny while making music together. Very sleepy, but very delighted by a wonderful evening, the audience went home with the hope that this was not Ethan's last excursion to the world of jazz. No matter what they thought of it all, it was a great and exciting chance for each Ethan fan to see him perforn so different in this small and private atmosphere. Hopefully projects like these will come again soon and be recorded!

You can read a long interview with Ethan and Till Brönner at: www.musicals-unlimited.net (only available in German)

Thanks to Kirsten Dannemann for providing the pictures