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SlideMeister Featured Artist - July 2013:
Jens Bunge was born on September 24, 1963. Inspired by Stevie Wonder's hit song "Isn't She Lovely", he picked up the chromatic harmonica at the age of 18. Listening to the recordings of Toots Thielemans, he found his passion for jazz and soon began to perform with local jazz groups and big bands, receiving more and more attention for his melodic improvisation style.
Besides concerts with his own bands, he performed with the German Jazz Youth Orchestra “BuJazzO” (conducted by Peter Herbolzheimer), and with jazz greats such as Art Farmer, Barbara Dennerlein, Emil Mangelsdorff, Bill Ramsey, Patricia Barber, and Leni Andrade. Being an untiring globetrotter, Jens Bunge has played his harmonica on all five continents: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal, Honolulu, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Bangkok, Sydney and Cape Town are some of the locations where he appeared as a featured guest of local jazz bands. 
He also made his mark at harmonica events, e.g. the World Harmonica Festivals in Trossingen/Germany, the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festivals in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, the Harmonica Bridge Festival in Poland and “Merate Musica” in Italy, where he performed at the gala concerts, judged in the competitions and conducted jazz workshops. He is also a regular writer for the jazz column of the magazine "The Harmonica Educator".
By now, Jens Bunge has published eight CDs under his own name, and appears on albums of artists such as Rick Smith, Ralf Gauck, Peter Lehel, Kai Sommer, Ruth Ling and Kay Tse. Jens has been a part of SlideMeister virtually since its inception in the last millennium. As far as I can remember, Jens has always been here. Besides owning some of his CD's, I've also enjoyed following him around on the web since getting to know him, and hearing how his music and uniquely smooth, "free and easy" style continues to evolve; this guy just keeps gettin' better all the time. Check Mr. Bunge out on the video below. |
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