Trumpet
Trumpeter and composer Jakob Bänsch is among the most promising rising stars of the European jazz scene.
London Jazz News attests his music a “mesmerizing, Bach-like intensity,” while renowned New York jazz critic Bill Milkowski has already compared him to a young Wynton Marsalis.
His debut album Opening received the German Jazz Award 2024 as “Debut Album of the Year.” In February 2025, his second album All The Others followed — a work that artfully weaves together impressionistic classical music, modern jazz, and folk elements.
Raised near Pforzheim as the son of classical musicians, Bänsch received both classical and jazz training from an early age. As a teenager, he was a member of both the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra and the State Youth Jazz Orchestra, and in 2020 he joined the German Federal Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO).
With his own bands, Bänsch has performed at Germany’s most prestigious jazz clubs and leading festivals — including Leverkusener Jazztage, Jazz Baltica, and JazzOpen Stuttgart — and has collaborated closely with international greats such as Nathan East, Nils Landgren, Wolfgang Haffner, Emil Mangelsdorff, Michael Abene, and as a soloist with the WDR Big Band.
As a sideman, Bänsch currently performs with the bands of Joachim Kühn, Tania Giannouli, Gee Hye Lee, and Benny Greb, with whom he has appeared at festivals in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Morocco.
Bänsch studied composition at the University of Music and Dance Cologne (HfMT Köln), was a WDR Composers Fellowship recipient, and participated in the Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy.
His compositions draw inspiration primarily from classical music around 1900 — including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Alexander Scriabin — as well as from the modern jazz of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.
From this synthesis emerges a distinctive sound — imbued with lyricism, symphonic dramaturgy, epic intensity, and virtuosity.
Jakob Bänsch has achieved a remarkable debut, musically situated right within the tradition of artfully modern jazz, yet independent of its usual mythic pretensions.
jazz
