Norbert Susemihl's Joyful Gumbo - New Orleans Jazzband

Born 1956 in Hamburg/Germany, Norbert Susemihl began to play the trumpet at the age of 15. In 1978 and 1979 he made his first trips to New Orleans. In 1980 he became a member of the New Orleans Musicians Union and he lived there for a year to study New Orleans Jazz and the lifestyle and culture that made and shaped this music. He has been a part-time resident of the Crescent City ever since, playing regularly with all of the local musicians, from the older traditional musicians to the younger generation players, covering all styles of New Orleans Music. He has also made recordings in New Orleans with musicians like Willie Humphrey, Father Al Lewis, Wanda Rouzan, CoCoMo Joe, Jason Marsalis, Louis Ford and Kerry Lewis. Besides playing with his own bands, Norbert is also regularly touring and performing as guest with different bands in Europe, and in New Orleans, performing on many festivals the continent over. He is considered today as one of the leading trumpeters in the New Orleans style.

Chris was born in 1978 in Melbourne, Australia. He began playing music at the age of 8 playing piano. When going to high school Chris started the saxophone. After three years he heard the clarinet and was inspired to play clarinet. In his early years he played professionally with Allan Browne New Orleans Rascals, The Yarra Yarra jazz band and The Hoodangers. This gave him a good grounding in playing early jazz music. Chris Tanner came to live in Denmark in the summer of 2009. He had been coming to Europe to play music for the last 10 years. Now living here he has played with many musicians here like Jacob Fischer, Hugo Rasmussen and Ole Fessor Lingren. Chris has also started his own band Chris Tanner’s Rifftet.

Hans Ingelstam, born 1944 in Stockholm, Sweden, was as a teenager one of the leading youngsters driving the New Orleans revival wave in Stockholm, together with well-known personalities like Orange Kellin and Lars Edegran. At the age of 15 he played a couple of songs with George Lewis in Stockholm, and since then he has played with many visiting American musicians like Albert Nicholas, Bud Freeman, Doc Cheatham and Peanuts Hucko. He has played in leading Swedish bands like Jazz Doctors, Vieux Carre and Jazzin' Jacks, travelling all over the world including 14 tours in USA. Currently, Hans shares his time mainly with Norbert Susemihl, Dixie For You (Danish and Swedish) and his own Quartet.

Morten graduated from the Norwegian Acadamy of Music in 1978, having specialized in classic ragtime and early jazz piano, with emphasis on Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Eubie Blake, and Louis M. Gottschalk. He recorded his first solo album in 1975 for which he received the ‘Spellemannsprisen’ award (the Norwegian Grammy). He has been a regular member of: Magnolia Jazz Band, Ytre Suloens Jassensemble and The Norwegian Rhythm Kings, and has toured with the New Orleans show One Mo’ Time, where he was also Musical Director. Morten is leading his own Orphelia Ragtime Orchestra and he has also created several musical programs such as Memories of Eubie, based on Eubie Blake’s music, excerpts from Joplin’s Treemonisha, and , in collaboration with American actor/playwright Vernel Bagneris, Jelly Roll-The Music and the Man, which played a highly successful Off Broadway run, receiving two Off Broadway awards and gaining Morten an ‘Obie’ for his role as solo pianist and musical director. He has been widely touring Europe and America, also as a featured soloist.

Born 7. September 1950 in Copenhagen, he is the leading Danish piano player in the New Orleans style, covering a wide spectrum of the music. His instrumental, as well as vocal performance have made him a huge musical attraction. His "Fats Domino" salutations are a big part of his sessions with his own band, Hans Knudsen Jumpband. For many years, Knudsen has also been performing with vocalist Lillian Boutte.

Jan-Hendrik Ehlers was born in 1975 in Bremerhaven/Germany. At the age of 10 he started to study classical piano and 5 years later he discovered Jazz and Swing and this became his passion. After formal studies of music he became a professional musician. Besides the piano, he can also be heard on trombone, trumpet, accordeon and tenorbanjo. Ehlers is one of the leading German jazz-pianists covering a wide stylistic spectrum of the music, while the stridepiano is mostly his main focus.

Mads Søndergaard, born in 1978, has studied jazzpiano at the Royal Music Conservatory in Haag and has, since he moved to Copenhagen in 2003, played with a wide variety of musical constellations. Both as sideman and as leader of his own group. He has a very versatile style of playing and swinging the piano, incorporating inspirations from many facetts of New Orleans Music.

Born in Aarhus in 1978, he started playing e-bass when 12 years old, and contrabass at 19. Today he is playing a rich variety of music, but primary jazz and crossover-projects and also some classical concerts. Jens has been part of over 30 CD productions between 2004 and 2015, and has written music in different genres for many of them. He has been educated at the classical conservatory in Odense, and he has also been teaching in ensemble playing. Jens Kristian Andersen is a great talent on contrabass and an innovative composer.

Torstein Ellingsen was born 1966 in Oslo, Norway. As a kid he played piano and cornet, changing to drum set in 1980. For many years he was a member of Caledonia Jazzband, that played on many jazz festivals in Scandinavia, and a.o. recorded with Norbert Susemihl in1991. Since 1999 Torstein has played with the Magnolia Jazzband and has been touring in Europe with such greats as Topsy Chapman and Lillian Boutté. Torstein has also made four recordings with the band. Regarded as the leading New Orleans jazz and gospel drummer in Norway, Torstein is also involved in other active bands that play blues, funk and soul jazz (The Real Thing), and crooner jazz (The Sinatra Songbook). Torstein has collaborated with many of Scandinavia’s leading traditional jazz artists, including Morten Gunnar Larsen, Georg Reiss and Orange Kellin.

Born into a musical family, Andreas Svendsen (b. 1989) began playing the drums at the age of 3 and quickly developed a strong passion for music. He went to the famous musical high school Sankt Annae Gumnasium and later got his Bachelor's degree in music performance at the Rhythmic Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen in 2013. Then he relocated to New York City to study at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music where he graduated as a Master of Music in 2016. After 3 years in New York, Svendsen has developed many strong working relationships with artists that have brought him around the world, performing with prominent names such as Eric Reed, Jeremy Pelt and Danny Grissett. Throughout the years, Svendsen has studied with many of the greatest drummers of jazz including Ed Thigpen, Kenny Washington, Gregory Hutchinson, Bill Stewart, Rodney Green and many others. Svendsen has made several trips to New Orleans and has studied the variety of the outstanding rhythms of the city of Jazz, which he masters and plays perfectly, making him a splendid contributor to Joyful Gumbo.

Born in 1954 in Hamburg/Germany, Thomas Altmann began to play music in 1971. Mostly self-taught, he has a natural and direct approach of drumming and sense of tradition and timekeeping. He has been regularly cooperating with Norbert Susemihl since 1986 and widened his knowledge on New Orleans drumming extensively, which strongly shaped and enriched his playing. He is also at home in other musical styles, making his first of several trips to Cuba in 1984. Altmann is also a master of Cuban Music and of percussion, writing and teaching about Cuban drums and drumming. He is a virtuoso, one of Europe's leading instrumentalists and very much at home with the traditional jazzstyle, Ragtime, New Orleans, Swing and Bop. As percussionist, he is in high in demand for Salsa, Cuban, Brazilian and Ghanaian music, amongst others with the North German Radio Big Band.