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I discovered jazz for the first time when I saw I Want To Live at the Idle Hour Theater, with a score (and appearances) by Gerry Mulligan. Pretty soon I was listening to all kinds of jazz and, better yet, seeing the greatest artists of the 1960s in person because they just loved to come to Germany — not only Gerry Mulligan but also Dizzy Gillespie, JJ Johnson, Art Farmer, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Bob Brookmeyer, Coleman Hawkins... — And not only seeing them in a giant concert hall, but afterwards in the intimate, super-secret, members-only “Jazz Keller” (domicile du jazz), behind a completely nondescript and unmarked door in a dark alley in the financial district, and down lots stairs, where they would jam into the morning after a concert. You had to show a membership card to get in.