The third Jazz Night at Peter Edel, organized by Jazz am Helmholtzplatz e.V., brings together two bands representing different generations and rooted in the Great American Songbook – while simultaneously incorporating and developing regional and international influences.

The common thread of the evening is groove: as an energetic foundation, a driving force for improvisation, and a unifying element, even though rhythms, concepts, and polyphonic approaches differ significantly.
Here, "groove" is understood as an open term for the rhythmic energy and tension that sustains jazz from its earliest forms to free jazz – beyond the historically narrower category of swing.

The evening opens with a group led by Dexter Stanley-Tauvao. The saxophonist hails from Samoa, grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, and received his musical training in both New Zealand and New York City. Until about a year ago, he lived in New York as a Fulbright scholar, where he, among other things, Stanley-Tauvao, who co-founded the first Asia-Pacific Jazz Orchestra, now lives in Berlin again. He is particularly drawn to the sound of large jazz orchestras, but this evening he presents a smaller ensemble that allows for rich grooves and open improvisation.

The second band of the evening is the Allan Praskin Quartet. Allan Praskin is considered a master of the alto saxophone—a musician who has internalized the Great American Songbook and whose virtuosic, creative, and nuanced playing encapsulates the entire knowledge of 20th-century jazz. His career began at the legendary Lighthouse Café in Los Angeles, where he performed with West Coast jazz greats like Chet Baker—a venue later immortalized in the Oscar-winning film La La Land.
In the late 1960s, Praskin immersed himself in the avant-garde and loft scene of free jazz in New York. After many years as a professor at the Anton Bruckner University Linz and the University of Passau, he now lives in Berlin. With Ulli Bartel (violin), Ben Lehmann (bass), and Heinrich Köbberling (drums, Jazz Institute Berlin), he has formed an exceptional quartet.