"We notice how we can keep building compositionally"

We catch up with you between the years - you are currently free from your teaching activities in Lucerne and Basel. How are you spending the time?
Very quietly. They are quiet days. Sometimes I put on a record and listen more closely.

What's on the turntable at the moment?
Funnily enough, a lot of jazz from the fifties. Clifford Brown, for example.

Do you also play the piano in private? "O Tannenbaum" and "Jingle Bells" on Christmas Eve? After all, those are standards too!
No. I avoid that. But I do enjoy listening to oratorios. I am also a member of a choir with which we practised kurrendesingen for the first time this Christmas. On 25 December, very early in the morning, we walked through the streets of Basel and sang Renaissance Christmas carols together. I found it quite magical to walk through the dark city singing and to wake people up very gently.

So you sing quite consciously. But your voice can also be heard in other ways: When people watch your concert recordings on YouTube, you accompany the piano melodies vocally. Where does that come from?
That happens quite quickly when you improvise. That's one of the tracks that runs along with it. To sink even more into the music. I don't notice that, by the way.

Does that surprise you when you listen to your recordings?
I have got used to it. Sometimes it can seem quite cool, I think. But a fellow musician has also forbidden me to sing. He found it irritating. And I found it interesting to try to control it. We also put up a board between me and the resonance chamber of the grand piano so that it wouldn't influence the recordings too much. But in the end, I didn't force it out of myself. It somehow belongs to me.

You come to Witikon with the bass player Bänz Oester and the drummer Norbert Pfammatter. You've been playing together for ages. What is it that makes the two of you so special? Why doesn't it get boring after all these years?
It's an age-old musical friendship. We've been playing together since the mid-nineties. In the beginning in a larger formation. Then we filtered this trio out of it. In this constellation, we realise how we can always keep building. Since we are always developing ourselves, it doesn't get boring.

Christian Niederer, the curator of the "Jazz in Witikon: My Favorite Things" series, said you were the very first choice. He praises the phrasing and nuanced depths of your music and says your music is "one of a kind". What do you yourselves strive for? With what intention do you go to work?
I think it's simply about making good music. Nothing more. All three of us are also active as composers, but with this trio we only play compositions by others. So it's about the selection and our interplay.

How do you go about tackling a "new" standard?
Basically, there is always a meeting. We get together and play. Independently of concerts or any intentions. Just like that. That's why I deliberately call it a "meeting" and not a "rehearsal", because there's rarely anything to rehearse. It's much more about finding out whether we still enjoy playing together and whether something exciting happens. We then play many more pieces than we then bring on stage. We only take those that still leave us room to explore.

The motto of the event is "My Favorite Things". Do you have any relationship to this standard?
Of course, you know the piece. In jazz history, especially in John Coltrane's intoxicating version. I have also played it, but very rarely. And never in this constellation. The song comes from a children's musical, if you like. It mentions schnitzel and pies - but that won't necessarily flow into the music now. Let's see what happens.

You have your finger on the pulse as a musician and lecturer: How is jazz doing in Switzerland? Is it living, breathing, reinventing itself?
I certainly can't answer this question conclusively. I only get a glimpse of what's going on. But my feeling is that it's not just something that's coming, there's actually a lot happening. I think jazz has reached a good point. It has been able to leave behind the debates about what is allowed and what is not. Today, everyone positions themselves quite self-confidently and develops very individually, interpreting jazz entirely for themselves. And that's how it should be. In general, I see a tendency for many young musicians to develop and realise their own band concepts and thus approach popular music.

On Youtube you also have a very nice pop music analysis. You dissect "Adios" by Loco Escrito: Do you remember the last time you were intoxicated by music from another genre?
I just had it recently with some musician friends: The biggest surprises as a music recipient come when you time travel. I remember hearing dance music from the Renaissance a few years ago and having a real flash. I had never heard anything like that before.

You have been active and highly respected in the jazz scene for ages. But one doesn't find much about you on the net. And there's hardly anything on the usual streaming platforms either. Why is that?
I don't like to advertise myself. Having a website is nothing new now. And I don't think it's wrong to present yourself well there. But I always think to myself: Actually, I'd rather work on the music than write anything there. By the way, I feel the same way about social media: That's all ok. But it seems to me that you can waste a lot of time there.

Does Hans Feigenwinter actually think about what he wears on stage?
Yes, I do. And then I always come to the conclusion that I want to go on stage in my everyday clothes. There are singers whose visual appearance convinces me insanely. Evelinn Trouble's, for example. But no stage outfit suits me.

Family concerts are given in Witikon. It is explicitly desired that children of all ages be present. Do you have any experience with that?
Hardly. Very few children come to jazz concerts. In that respect I think it's good. We don't make exclusive music.

Does your enthusiasm for jazz go back to childhood?
You could say that, yes. I already improvised a lot as a child - with the vocabulary I had at that time.

You explained how it works with you: You try out different pieces at your meetings and the ones that happen the most you then play live in front of an audience. Is there any other ritual before the concerts?
Ritual sounds incredibly pompous. We don't have anything like that. We feel comfortable if we can spend the last half hour before the gig in silence.

A glass of red wine?
I'd rather not.

About the person
The piano has accompanied Hans Feigenwinter, born in 1965 and raised in the Basel area, all his life. His parents were devoted to classical music, and the young Hans was already improvising at the age of six. After touring the country with various pop bands as a teenager, he devoted himself to jazz. Today he teaches at the Music Academy in Basel and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and plays in a wide variety of formations. Two of the best-known and longest-running: The trio with Arno Troxler and Wolfgang Zwiauer, with whom he performs original compositions, and the trio with Bänz Oester and Norbert Pfammatter, with whom he will be heard in Witikon on 13 January from 7 pm.