Alexander von Schlippenbach

Blue for a Moment is a documentary portrait of Swedish-born, Berlin-based musician Sven-Åke Johansson, a key figure in European improvised and experimental music. Active as a jazz drummer, composer, poet and visual artist, Johansson has spent decades challenging artistic conventions and genre boundaries. Born in 1943, he moved to Berlin in the late 1960s and became involved in the city’s experimental scene, including the Zodiak Free Arts Lab. During the 1970s and 1980s he played an important role in the West Berlin free jazz movement around the FMP/SÅJ label, collaborating with musicians such as Alexander von Schlippenbach and Rüdiger Carl. Influenced by Fluxus and modernist traditions, Johansson developed a distinctive approach based on noise, reduction and the use of everyday materials, anticipating the Echtzeitmusik scene that emerged in Berlin after 1990. The film explores his creative process, artistic philosophy and lasting impact on contemporary experimental music.

For 40 years now, The Schlippenbach Trio (Alexander von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, Paul Lovens) has been part of the European free jazz scene. Each year in december they go on the “Winterreise” to play their sound of divergence, catharsis and explosion.

The music label MPS (Musik Produktion Schwarzwald) from Villingen is known worldwide to fans, musicians and lovers of jazz. Legends such as Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Friedrich Gulda, Monty Alexander, George Duke, Freddie Hubbard, Jean-Luc Ponty or the Singers Unlimited traveled to the small Black Forest town from the mid-1960s onwards to take in the entrepreneur's son Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer. Around 500 albums were released on MPS, many of which are long-established classics. Thus, for two decades Villingen became a jazz mecca, which stars Jean Luc Ponty, Jasper van't Hof, Monty Alexander, Rolf and Joachim Kühn or Gunter Hampel, as well as Charly Antolini, Daniel Humair, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Eberhard Weber still rave about today. The documentary takes viewers on a fascinating journey into the 60s and 70s and tells one of the most incredible chapters in jazz history, which originated in southwestern Germany.

He is one of the forefathers of European free jazz: Alexander von Schlippenbach has been following his own path for decades, playing the piano, composing and leading bands. Thsis film now paints a very personal portrait, showing biographical breaks but also departures. He reconstructs Schlippenbach's path into the musician collective of the now legendary “Free Music Production” (FMP), for whom free jazz meant breaking boundaries.