Meet a TUD alumnus: Frank Bartsch is a senior engineer and top-tier jazz trumpeter

Mathias Bäumel

Graduates of TU Dresden who have had and continue to have national success in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) can be found all over Germany. Even before German reunification, TUD had a strong reputation in West Germany for the quality of its graduates.

TU Dresden also has famous alumni who studied STEM here but switched careers and found their vocation in the arts and cultural professions – take for example the writer Jens Wonneberger; the jewelry dealer Marion Bogda; the architect and panorama artist Yadegar Asisi, the cartoonist Barbara Henniger; the music publicist Peter Zacher, who has sadly passed away; the comedian and satirist Olaf Böhme, who became popular as the “betrunkener Sachse” (“drunk Saxon”); the composer and computer musician Friedbert Wissmann; the musician, television journalist, and writer Jürgen Magister…

There are, however, only a very few who enjoy a long and successful career in their specialist field and are also widely recognized as artists. One of those people was Klaus-Georg “Jockel” Eulitz, TUD professor at the Institute of Solid Mechanics and banjo player and singer with the Blue Wonder Jazz Band. Another is Frank Bartsch, who has for many years been a senior scientist at Großmann Ingenieur Consult (GICON) – and who has made a national name for himself as a jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player.

Dresden jazz fans probably know Bartsch best from the legendary big band The Real Monday Night Long Island Ice Tea Jazzfanatics Orchestra, which has been performing in Dresden almost every Monday for over twenty years. Bartsch has also played sax with the Elb Meadow Ramblers, one of the leading Dixieland groups in Germany, since 1983. At the opposite end of the stylistic spectrum come his projects with Andreas Scotty Böttcher and Lou Grassi (“Noises from an Open Window” CD), and his duo with Scotty. This is where they demonstrate what free improvisation can be without slipping into the Kaputtspiel (“play it to pieces”) aesthetic. Swing and modern jazz at their finest are celebrated by Bartsch’s band EinheiZpartei, also featuring Scotty alongside Claas Larsen (dr) and Oliver Klemp (b). And Bartsch regularly features in the “Zwischen Bach und Blues” project by cellist Ulrich Thiem – as a CD from 2004 testifies.

The musician founded the first band of his own, the Frank Bartsch Quintet, in 2002, when a group of (mostly) Dresden-based musicians was formed for JazzFest Dresden, a festival marking the 25^th anniversary of IG Jazz. Bartsch was joined by the pianist Andreas Gundlach, the bassist Tom Götze, the drummer Heiko Jung, and the Thuringian alto saxophonist Stanley Blume. Of course, the quintet’s line-up has changed since its early performances.

Concerts have so far taken Bartsch to Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Switzerland, Tenerife, the Czech Republic and the UK. He plays all styles of jazz from traditional to free, in duos and in big bands. Bartsch’s tone is soft yet powerful, reminiscent of Chet Baker and Clark Terry. The phrasing and sound are captivating, perceptive (yes, he is familiar with the music of his great predecessors), and vibrant.

Bartsch started on his musical path as a little boy in Leipzig, where he discovered music and music-making for himself when he was just seven years old. At sixteen, he played in a group led by the Leipzig Gewandhaus cellist Karl-Heinz Werchau, and later – occasionally – in a big band directed by Ralph Stolle, the former trombonist of the legendary GDR band Panta Rhei.

When Bartsch moved from Leipzig to Dresden in 1983 and began his degree at TUD, his musical career progressed and he joined the Elb Meadow Ramblers. In one respect, this was to be a momentous step for the trumpeter: In 1989 – before the fall of the Berlin Wall – the “Ramblers” were allowed to spend two weeks performing on the Elbe steamboat “Dresden,” docked in the port of Hamburg, as part of festivities marking the port’s 800^th anniversary. While in Hamburg, Bartsch saw posters for concerts by Clark Terry at the “Dennis Swing Club.” He went to three of them and has ever since been “spellbound” by the music of this trumpeting jazz great. That was how Frank Bartsch found his own tone and style.

At the time, he was working as a research assistant in measurement and automation technology at TU Dresden. He moved to an engineering company in 1990, and from 1994 onwards was departmental head and subsequently divisional manager for computer engineering at GICON. His specialism is database systems for the collection and retrieval of environmental data, groundwater and facility management systems, and online monitoring of the harmful effects of pollution.

The engineer and trumpet player is only able to perform at the highest level in both his professional engineering work and his music through strong discipline and thanks to acceptance from his employer and from his family. “I practice the trumpet every day, but often late in the evening because of work,” says Bartsch, adding that he has never neglected anything to do with work because of music. At the same time, GICON boss Jochen Großmann has been very accepting of Bartsch’s second, artistic occupation. “The main thing has always been that the work gets done; Jochen Großmann has never asked when I put in the hours. This has allowed me to attend rehearsals, for example at the Schauspielhaus, during the day when necessary.”

Bartsch is driven by the fundamental spirit of jazz as he understands it – a musical symbol of a human togetherness. “Jazz as I love it is possible only through interacting with fellow musicians. It is a wonderful exception in today’s competitive world.”

You can currently enjoy Bartsch’s trumpet and flugelhorn playing on around ten CDs. Better yet, why not listen to him live? His next performance is the Christmas concert on Boxing Day.

The concert will be held on December 26, 2018, at 4 p.m.: “Swinging Christmas” with
Frank Bartsch, Tobias Hörig,
Lars Födisch, and Patrick Neumann
in Weinbergkirche church, Pillnitz.

This article was published on December 11, 2019, in the 20/2018 Dresden Universitätsjournal. You can download the full issue as a PDF for free here. You can also order the UJ in print or as a PDF from doreen.liesch@tu-dresden.de. More information is available at universitaetsjournal.de.