Berlin Jazz Kultur e.V. & Uri Gincel present
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The full
program.

This is ensemble work — you join a band of up to five musicians and spend the semester developing together. Not lessons, not a class. A group. Built for people with a life outside of music who want to play seriously again, students wanting real experience, and professionals ready to go further.

The Curriculum

What we work on.

01

The Bandstand

What do you do when you sit down with musicians you've never played with? How do you start a tune, end one, signal a solo, recover from a mistake? We go through all of it.

02

Standards

The repertoire is the foundation. We look at standards closely. Not just playing through the changes but understanding what each tune wants and how to bring something to it.

03

Communication

Most of what makes a band good or bad is how much people are actually listening to each other. We work on that directly. How to hear what's happening and respond to it rather than just playing your part.

04

Every Instrument's Role

Each teacher brings their own instrument's perspective into the room. By the end you'll have a much clearer sense of what the drummer is thinking, what the bass player needs, and how the horns hear the harmony.

05

Real Repertoire

We play tunes from session one. Everything happens in the context of actual music. No abstract exercises, no playing into a void.

06

Performance Preparation

The whole semester builds toward a real gig. We take that seriously: the setlist, how you present yourselves, how to deal with nerves, how to stay focused when it counts.

Faculty

Taught by musicians
who play.

Everyone teaching here plays regularly. These aren't academics. They're working musicians who deal with the same questions every week that you're trying to figure out.

Uri Gincel

Program Director · Piano

Uri Gincel

Uri is a pianist, composer, and arranger based in Berlin. He leads the program and focuses on what the piano actually does in a jazz group: comping, voicing, knowing when to lay out, how to support a soloist without stepping on them, how to drive the harmony forward, and how to lead a band from the piano. He started this because he felt something was missing from jazz education in Berlin, and decided to do something about it.

Drums

Tobias Backhaus

/ Moritz Baumgärtner

How the kit actually functions in a jazz group, what the drummer is reacting to, and how to play with the drums rather than around them.

Bass

Paul Kleber

/ Makar Novikov

What the bass is doing harmonically and rhythmically, and why it matters so much for everyone else in the group.

Saxophone

Ori Jacobson

Phrasing, space, and how to carry a melody. From someone who does it every night.

Trumpet

Florian Menzel

The trumpet's role in a jazz group: leading, blending, and knowing when to step back.

The Venue

Zigzag
Jazz Club.

Every session is at the Zigzag Jazz Club. It's one of the best jazz clubs in Berlin, and serious international artists play there regularly. Uri has been leading sessions there for 10 years. He knows the room well, and he's chosen it for this program deliberately. You're not working in a practice room somewhere. You're in the actual room, on the actual stage, from session one.

All equipment is provided at the club: piano, drum kit, bass amp, and PA. Horn players bring their own instrument. Everything else is there.

The night before your end-of-semester gig, that same stage might have one of the biggest names in jazz on it. We think that's the right environment to learn in.

Zigzag Jazz Club
Extra Courses

Go deeper on
what matters.

Alongside the main program we offer focused courses on specific areas. You can take them with the semester or on their own.

I

Improvisation

How to actually improvise. Not just running scales over changes. We look at phrasing, how to develop an idea, how to use space, and how to make a solo sound like you meant it.

II

Arrangement

Taking a tune, a standard or something of your own, and turning it into an arrangement. How to write for the group you have, and how to give a song an identity beyond the original.

III

Studio Recording

Record your group properly. At the end of the semester or during, we offer the option to take the band into a professional analog studio and record a session. A real document of where you are, done right.

IV

More coming

More courses are coming. If there's something specific you'd like to see covered, let us know.

End of Semester

You don't graduate.
You perform.

At the end of the semester your group plays a gig at Zigzag. Not a recital, not a showcase. An actual show with an actual audience. Knowing that's coming changes how you work in every session leading up to it.

It's not optional. It's the whole point.

"The same stage. The night after the legends."

Pricing

Flexible for
what you need.

Pricing is being worked out. If you add extra courses to the semester you get a better rate overall. Write to us and we'll let you know as soon as it's confirmed.

Core

Full Semester

12 sessions, 2 hours each, at Zigzag. All teachers, full repertoire work, and the end-of-semester gig.

Price TBA

Bundle

Semester + Electives

The full semester plus one or more extra courses. The more you add, the better the rate.

Price TBA · Best value

Apply

Ready to
play?

Send a short video of yourself playing two standards. Uri reviews every application personally and puts the bands together from there — ensembles of up to five, matched by level so the whole group moves forward together. The number of bands each semester is small. Apply early.

urigincel@gmail.com
Venue Zigzag Jazz Club, Berlin
Under Berlin Jazz Kultur e.V.
Instagram @urigincel