Joachim-Ernst Berendt

Joachim-Ernst Berendt (20 July 1922 in Berlin – 4 February 2000 in Hamburg) was a German music journalist, author and producer specialized on jazz.

Life

Berendt's father, Ernst Berendt, was a Protestant pastor belonging to the Confessing Church who was imprisoned and died in the Dachau concentration camp. J.-E. Berendt started studying Physics, but his studies were interrupted by his enlistment to the Wehrmacht. Already during the Nazi Germany years Berendt took an interest in jazz; enthusiasts in this period retreated to the underground.

After World War II, he helped founding the Südwestfunk (SWF) radio network in the then French occupation zone of Germany. From 1950 until his retirement in 1987, he was in charge of the jazz department of the SWF.

Berendt initiated and organized many jazz festivals (American Folk Blues Festival, Berliner Jazztage, World Expo Osaka).

Works (selection) Jazz: A Photo History (translated by William Odom), Schirmer Books, 1979. Joachim-Ernst Berendt reads Rainer Maria Rilke "Seelenlandschaften" (Landscapes of the Soul), with music from Philip Catherine, Krzysztof Zgraja, Vladislav Sendecki; Producer: ℗1998 Horst Bösing ©2003 Jaro 4267-2