Heinz Sauer Quintet - Norma Lee
We'll initiate the weekend of tribute to a fallen keyboard star with a burning 40th anniversary concert that features him in the band of a highly undersung German Jazz icon.
This one will be followed by an even more extensive round of exquisite live music tomorrow, as we roll on with February like Sisyphus up the hill.
The man with the horn is Heinz Sauer, a Christmas baby from Frankfurt who started in the 1950s and gradually became more electronic-oriented as he went down the decades.
He is 93 now and largely retired, but in the many decades he was active he played with ten million people, among them Richie Beirach, the piano Maestro largely associated with the ECM label who passed away a couple of weeks ago.
We'll get further into the 'Rach scene tomorrow, but he's certainly so mere side voice in this concert, which also features Polish trumpet deity Tomasz Stańko on 3 of the 4 tunes.
There aren't too many Heinz Sauer ROIOs, so this here is like precious platinum, gleaned and cleaned by me from a DVD.
Heinz Sauer Quintet
20th Deutsches Jazz Festival
Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks
Frankfurt, Germany
2.14.1986
01 Cherry Bat
02 Norma Lee
03 Meadow Bells
04 I Want to Die Easy When I Die
Total time: 1:03:47
Heinz Sauer - soprano & tenor saxophones
Tomasz Stańko - trumpet
Richie Beirach - piano
Thomas Heidepriem - bass
Thomas Cremer - drums
224/48K audio extracted from a PAL DVD of a European digital satellite broadcast
edited, tracked & remastered by EN, February 2026
361 MB FLAC/direct link
361 MB FLAC/direct link
Like I said, this is just the first part of a two part thing, but since it was taped 40 years ago today I couldn't see why I shouldn't wedge it in before the larger chunk of Beirach tomorrow.
And of course we get to give a shoutout to Heinz Sauer -- as expressive a tenor player as has ever emerged from Germany -- born way back in 1932 and thankfully still with us!--J.
