They enable me to create a very special rhythmic structure which cannot be easily imitated by the double-bass, since together with the two manuals I have a kind of "rhythmic triptych" at my disposal," explains Barbara Dennerlein. Above all, she is one of the very few organists who play a pedal bass, and is surely unequalled for heR&Breathtaking technique."The pedals are absolutely crucial for my way of playing the Hammond organ. Without doubt she can claim that she has paved the way for the organ's current renaissance in jazz. With heR&Brilliant playing technique she created an innovative and distinctive style that opened up totally new musical dimensions for the Hammond organ, which in modern jazz had been ignored for a long time. There she laid the foundations for her future career as a professional musician, which, before very long, let her rise to the circle of the few German artists with international reputation and become the leading representative of her instrument, the legendary Hammond B3.
Just a few years later, aged fifteen, she performed regularly at local jazz clubs. Born in Munich in 1964, Barbara Dennerlein started playing organ at the age of eleven. An international success that was even outdone with her follow-up albums Junkanoo (Verve 537 122-2) and Outhipped (Verve 547 503-2). In the same year this successful CD was honoured twice with the "Jazz Award" and, after holding the Number One position in the German Jazz Charts for several months, proved to be the best-selling jazz album of 1995. In 1998 she took first prize for the fifth time in the "TDWR organ" category in 1995, for the third time, she carried off the "German Record Critics Award" ("Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik"), on this occasion for her Verve debut album Take Off (Verve 527 664-2). In the "Critics' Poll" organised by the renowned American jazz magazine DownBeat she has been among the leaders year after year. Yet despite all this enthusiasm, scarcely anyone truly believed that this young lady would become Germany's most important and successful jazz export, acclaimed and respected by critics and the public alike on both sides of the Atlantic. And many a local jazz celebrity competed to appear on stage together with this prodigy. Jazz at its best, ranging from swing to bebop, from blues to funk. But what thiSempert, unaffected teenager performed was pure jazz. In the early 1980's she was a secret known only to insiders on the Munich jazz scene: 15-year-old Barbara Dennerlein, captivating an enthusiastic audience with impressive wit and skill as she whirled her fingers over the B3 Hammond organ - an instrument often derided and associated with the dusty patina of bar jazz.
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