The clearest jazz thread in Berlin’s upcoming November 5–8 concert window arrives immediately on Thursday, November 5: two shows built around music’s capacity to carry place, memory and rhythm into the present. At Gretchen, Berlin-based producer and keyboardist Àbáse presents his Nefelejcs album-release show with singer Kacsó Hanga and saxophonist and clarinetist Otis Sandsjö. Across town, Corina Bartra brings her Afro-Peruvian jazz perspective to Kunstfabrik Schlot. These are separate bills, yet together they offer a concise route through a local jazz culture where tradition functions as material for new arrangements, improvisation and groove.[1][2][3][4]

Àbáse’s folk songs enter the studio and the club

Àbáse is the project of Hungarian-born, Berlin-based Szabolcs Bognár, whose work moves among modal jazz, Hungarian folk music, West African and Brazilian influences, hip-hop and electronic underground culture. That breadth matters here because Nefelejcs, released the day after the concert, draws directly on a deepened relationship with Hungarian musical heritage. The record’s notes describe samples and interpolations from Eastern European avant-garde, folk, contemporary classical music and ethno-jazz, shaped with a club-aware sensibility. Hanga’s voice belongs centrally to this material, while Sandsjö contributes tenor saxophone and clarinet to recordings made at Berlin’s Brewery Studios. Gretchen’s bill also includes ZENA and an opening DJ set from Petter Eldh and Sean Steinfeger, setting up an evening where live ensemble playing, production and selection occupy the same frame.[1][2]

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Corina Bartra’s Afro-Peruvian jazz language

Corina Bartra’s appearance at Kunstfabrik Schlot gives the thread a different archive and a different rhythmic centre. Her own biography describes a practice that fuses Afro-Peruvian and criolla music with jazz, including the cajón and festejo groove in her compositions and arrangements. Her projects have also connected Afro-Peruvian rhythms with Afro-American jazz, Brazilian and Cuban currents, and Pan-American influences. The point is less a survey of styles than a recognisable approach to rhythm: voice, percussion and jazz phrasing become ways of keeping several musical histories in conversation. For a club whose programme identifies it as a Berlin-Mitte jazz venue, Bartra’s set places that approach in an intimate, concert-led setting on the same night as Àbáse’s release event.[3][4]

A practical Thursday route

Start at Gretchen, where Àbáse’s show begins at 20:30 on Thursday, November 5, with doors from 19:30. Kunstfabrik Schlot’s programme lists Corina Bartra for the same Thursday, making this a choice between two closely related ideas of jazz, or an early-evening-to-late-night plan if set times allow. Gretchen is in Kreuzberg; Kunstfabrik Schlot is in the Edison Höfe near Nordbahnhof. Check both official pages again before leaving for current admission details, running order, door times and any last-minute changes.[1][3]

These concerts happened on 5 November 2026

The next dates at these venues: Gretchen · Kunstfabrik Schlot

Sources

  1. Àbáse – Nefelejcs Album Release Show — Gretchen
  2. Nefelejcs — Àbáse
  3. Programm — Kunstfabrik Schlot
  4. Biography & Projects — Corina Bartra