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1.
Euphomism
2.
Point of View
3.
Keep it Simple!
4.
Pastiche

Hartmut Hillmann's Page

Profile Information

City & State: Frankfurt, Hessen

Country: Germany

Music Genre(s):: Nujazz, Worldjazz, Funk

Bio:: Hartmut was born in 1961 in a small village in the backwoods Taunus hills in Germany near the Lorelei rock. He started on his brother's guitar at age 15 and switched two years later to bassguitar when he bought Stanley Clarke's debut record, because it was recommended by a hifi magazine for testing stereo equipment. He was immediately captivated by the bass sound. After two years of saving all his money, he started off to the next bigger city (Koblenz)to acquire a Japanese Jazzbass copy, just for the beautiful black, red-wrapped nylon Rotosound flatwounds. He was hired by a guitar playing classmate for the school Rock band "BREAK"(still existing after 30 years) playing Rolling Stones songs, which he hated from the bottom of his heart, because he wanted to be a cool JAZZ musician. Later he indeed found some people to play jazz, and nowadays he loves to play "Jumping Jack Flash" as well as "Donna Lee". Playing musicals like "Line One", "Little Shop Of Horrors" or "Personals" widened his music view and allowed him to pay his rent for two years. He played all kinds of music in many bands, won the "First Bass International Bass Magazine" award in the jazz category (and was finalist in the Fusion category) in 1985, auditioned in 1992 at the Frankfurt Music Fair for a Berklee scholarship. He received it, but preferred to stay in Germany with his first own band "Hartmut Hillmann Eclecticband" and later "Zabriskie Point", which had two CD releases (produced by Mallet virtuoso David Friedman) and an Africa tour in 1995, playing in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Influenced by the African grooves and musicians he decided to build a new band: "Illicit Poetry" (the songs You can listen to here), playing his original compositions, rehearsing and recording in Tuscany in 1998 and 1999 resulting in two CD releases "Eclecticjazz" and "Uncivilized". Though the record industry showed some interest, the band was never signed... and Hartmut was pissed like hell... and retired from the jazz scene in 2002. He started teaching kids with special needs jazz and improvisation as a therapeutical means, exploring his Buddhist practice and playing drums in his German-Japanese Band “Ushi-Tora“ for five years. He jumped back to the scene in 2007 joining several bands and projects as bass player: Dgroove, Wasserspiele, Mike Burn And Friends, Scottish singer Kate Cassidy, touring with fellow bass player Kai Eckhardt and doing some solo concerts. Since summer 2008 Hartmut Hillmann is leading his own project again: The Hartmut Hillmann Band featuring some of the finest musicians around: Joe Hain on keyboards, percussionist Klaus “Nirjan” Frölich and Indian/Tamil percussionist Nagaswaran “Warren” Wunderlich. The band’s mix of natural instruments with extensive use of loops and electronics results in some enigmatic Heavy-Urban-Ethno-Funk-Crossover-Hiphop-Dinner-Music. The Hartmut Hillmann Band is the house band of the Frankfurt, Germany based Japanese Izakaya Restaurant Mangetsu (full moon) and can be heard at their monthly Full Moon Party. And that’s the place where everything started: since the location is very small and the restaurant guests’ priority was not listening to a band in the first place, the volume had to be kept on a moderate level. Hartmut invited two percussion players instead of a drummer and started to use loops, samples and drum programming as a new musical conception. The song structures were mostly improvised and here and there some themes and melodies evolved from gig to gig. The musicians take their time, without the pressure to make a statement within five minutes. Thus many songs continue about twenty to thirty minutes with a magical, trance-like atmosphere. The essence of thirteen months of recording three hour concerts can be heard on the debut album “Point of View” released in April 2011.