ON the Beat | Kaleidoscope Ears on the Rhine River

This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on July 11, 2024. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox on Fridays, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

Picture yourself on a boat on a river. Free-ranging sounds call you; you listen quite raptly, to artists with kaleidoscope ears.

The picturesque process became a special reality for me last week at the invitation of the unique Monheim Trienniale II, taking place mostly on the docked good ship MS RheinFantasie. No, this was not your father/mother or son/daughter’s cruise ship diversion, but an intrepid experiment with social and inclusive implications beyond the notes and musical collaborations involved. Sixteen fine and innately adaptable and improvisation-ready musicians were pulled from a global rolodex of possibilities, including the famed trumpet master Peter Evans, saxist-deserving-wider-recognition Darius Jones, eminent German new music composer and pianist Heiner Goebbels, and up-and-comers from many worldly locales.

This still-young and unique variation on the jazz festival theme takes place in the Rhine River–hugged small (43,000 pop.) city of Monheim, between the urban outposts of Dusseldorf and Cologne, and a world away in many ways. A pleasant ambling walk along the Rhine and inward takes you to the humble old town (Altstadt), for a delectable dinner at the Ohter restaurant or the proverbial schnitzel plate at Pfannenhof. Meanwhile, the Trienniale’s musical fare and intentions are anything but quaint.