“Did you ever have Gast Waltzing as a professor?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t my main teacher, but I studied with him, yes.”

“How would you describe his teaching style?”

My friend pauses for a moment, looking for the word. “Brutal.”

Rewind a couple days to my interview with Gast Waltzing himself, Luxembourg’s only grammy winner (to date). We’re sitting at his dining table, discussing the nascence of jazz education in Luxembourg in the mid-1980s and his particular role in it, then and since, including as a longtime professor at the Luxembourg City Music Conservatory.

“I was a son-of-a-bitch,” says Waltzing, in fond reminiscence of his teaching days, and--I was starting to realise--in corroboration of his own reputation.

Punching above its weight class

This article began as an exploration of one question: how is it that a country as small as Luxembourg is producing so many extraordinary jazz musicians? Because it’s conspicuous----that, per capita, a higher percentage of Luxembourgers are jazz virtuosos than in other countries. 

Over the course of several interviews (with musicians and musician-teachers, one booker and festival-organiser, and two jazz exporters), two answers were emergent, one nested within the other. The larger answer, quite simply, is that the style and standard of jazz education in Luxembourg is superior; and within that answer, from the several interviewees willing to get specific, came a name: Gast Waltzing.

Waltzing, born in 1956, is a trumpeter, educator, arranger, conductor and ultimately a household name both in Luxembourg and abroad. In the grand duchy’s jazz circles, it’s common knowledge that he created the conservatory’s jazz department in 1986, putting it among the early wave of such departments in Europe. “I became a professor of classical trumpet and chamber music in ’83,” he says. “And I started nagging [for jazz courses] from ’84.” What started as a couple of hours a week soon became an official department.

Today, jazz education in Luxembourg has a reputation for producing musicians with a sharp-as-knives knowledge of theory, which places them at an advantage when they go abroad to study at university. This extends to the United States, which is famous for its less academic, ear-first approach, but equally--if you listen to what local musicians say--to other European countries.

“I think we’re very strong in everything that’s theoretical… all the logical stuff,” comments Veda Bartringer, a guitarist and composer who, at 26, is among the younger generation of Luxembourgish jazz musicians. “When I went to Brussels to study at the conservatory, I met a lot of musicians who didn’t have that kind of knowledge. Some of them didn’t even know how to read notes. But therefore their ear--their feeling for music--was different than musicians from Luxembourg. It’s a more emotional way of playing.”

“I was really good at theory… but in a lot of aspects I was not as good as other people,” says Mateus Wojda, 28, a bassist and composer who studied at the conservatory in Amsterdam. “I think Luxembourg is super strong in theoretical knowledge and just understanding how music works.”

Guitarist and composer Gilles Grethen, 29, echoed the same thoughts: “If you come from Luxembourg and you do all of that”--meaning complete your education here and attend the conservatory--“and you go to the universities of the world, then you already have a head start. That’s very clear.” Grethen studied jazz guitar in Saarbrucken and Mannheim.

“They are less theoretical,” says Michel Reis of the Americans. At 41, Reis is one of Luxembourg’s established jazz greats; the pianist and composer studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston as well as the New England Conservatory of Music. He draws a more general contrast between European and American pedagogical approaches: “They’re more practical, more intuitive, and we [Europeans] are more brainy, in a way, because we have all that baggage from the classes we took here.”

“It actually shows that our music education system is really, very good in Luxembourg,” adds Reis, talking about the huge output of the small country. “It’s strict. But I guess it somehow works.”

All of these musicians are Luxembourgish, all of them completed their studies at Luxembourg conservatories before going abroad--respectively to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States--and all of them agree: Gast Waltzing and the jazz department really, really kicked them into shape.

Wojda and Grethen are both members of the nujazz group LINQ in the video above.

Early days of jazz education

This jazz department did not, of course, come into the world fully formed. “Honestly,” says Waltzing, “in the beginning, we didn’t really know what we were doing. It came slowly.” He recalls, back in the ’80s, heading up to Liège for jazz lessons on an informal basis--there was no official programme there either--and further modelling his new department on what he knew of the Berklee College of Music. Together with Belgian musicians Guy Cabay and Jacques Pirotton, he made his start the way he had to: from scratch.

For Waltzing, importantly, you can’t teach jazz the way you might teach law or economics: its morphology is too personalised, too artistic, too much in motion. In those early days, he made his students learn some bebop and play the standards, but also encouraged them to develop their own musical personae. “I always tried to be very open, so that everybody can go in his own direction.”

“Jazz is an art movement that is constantly moving and going forward and changing,” he explains. “It’s a very live music. My big hero is Miles [Davis], just because he had the balls to change: each time they thought he was finished, he got better.”

Still, soon enough the importance of fitting in with the country’s wider educational norms became clear. “In order for our students to get diplomas,” Waltzing says, “and to go to university--because it became more and more common to have jazz at universities--I had to adapt the programme to the classical one, so you could also get a first prize in jazz.” This led to new requirements: sight-reading, history, theory, arranging, etc.

During the 1990s, the jazz programme got new theory books (written by guitarist and alumnus David Laborier) and expanded to the conservatories of Esch and Ettelbruck/Diekirch. But even as the curriculum became standardised, Waltzing continued to emphasise flexibility where possible: “People who want to go quickly or go to university, they should do it. The ones who want to go slower should take it slower.”

Waltzing agrees that the Luxembourg system, encompassing his jazz department, emphasises sight-reading and theory, but he doesn’t put that methodology above others. “In America--and I don’t say that that’s better--people go by ear and can play immediately,” he says. “It should be a combination of both. That would be perfect.”

Given that, at least in comparison with the United States, a theory-first approach is observable in northern European music education generally, the differentiating factor in Luxembourg jazz might be less its exact pedagogy and more the intensity of its--perhaps of Waltzing’s in particular--instruction.

“If Gast said you were ‘good,’” my trumpeter friend continues, “then that was high, high, high praise.” He chuckled. “He never said it to me.”

Slurring borders

Besides education, the second anomalous thing about Luxembourg for jazz musicians, and indeed any artist, is its size. Stories about the grand duchy are inevitably informed by how small it is, and celebrity is no exception: becoming nationally known is comparatively easy, but building an audience big enough to match foreign standards of fame is comparatively hard, because you have to cross a border to do it.

“Luxembourg is too small as a country to actually develop a career,” says Giovanni Trono, head of music at Kultur | lx, whose mission, as the country’s arts council, is to “export” artists. For musicians, this means promoting them abroad to agents, bookers, labels, etc. “This isn’t the case if you’re a French artist, for example. You can develop a career in France and live from your music there.”

The problem is, once you cross a border, you’re classed as an international musician. “My first record deal,” says Waltzing, who actually cofounded Music:LX, the precursor to Kultur | lx, in 2009--and who is very hard to keep out of this article--“was with BMG in Belgium, but we got put as ‘international’ musicians, not as Belgians. So you’re competing with Miles [Davis], you’re competing with Phil Collins and… what can I say? Difficult.”

“When bookers take international artists,” says Trono, making the same point, “they take artists that are already selling. So there isn’t much space for Luxembourgers.”

Marc Scheer, booker for the Prabbeli Cultural Centre in Wiltz and creator of the new (in 2024) festival Jazzorwhatever!?, possibly phrases it best: “I mean, what does that even mean? ‘Being famous’ in Luxembourg?”

Plus, says Trono, larger home circuits give musicians more opportunity to hone their sound. No such circuit in Luxembourg. “Here, sometimes you’re exported quite fast. And sometimes it’s too soon, because you haven’t developed properly.”

Trono ultimately calls this a disadvantage, though concedes one upside: musicians here are quicker to understand how export works and the steepness of their competition, and potentially become better as a result.

Advantage or not, this swift push for internationality--which comes on top of a tradition of studying abroad, given that there are no bachelor or master courses in music in Luxembourg--is characteristic of the scene, and, as such, is formative for its jazzpersons. And one avenue for success that it promotes is collaboration with musicians abroad.

“Many musicians in Luxembourg collaborate with very high-profile jazz musicians from all around the world,” says Trono’s colleague Clémence Creff, who runs Kultur | lx’s jazz desk. “That’s also quite important in identifying the scene.” Examples are far-ranging, but include Reis Demuth Wiltgen, the Luxembourgish trio who have played with saxophonist Joshua Redman; Pascal Schumacher, who has played with pianist Jef Neve; or Greg Lamy, who has played with pianist Bojan Z.

But the biggest example is obviously Gast Waltzing, whose countless international collaborations notably include his work with Angelique Kidjo: he did the arrangements for and conducted the orchestra on her album Sings, for which he won a grammy in 2016.

Tying it all together

So, once again: why are there so many jazz greats in Luxembourg?

Is it the kick-your-ass-into-gear style of jazz education? The heightened role of internationality?

For better or worse, jazz is deeply embedded in educational structures. In fact, it’s often criticised for being too academic: for cynics, the genre has long ceased to be people’s music and has become a platform for overeducated theory gurus to make inside jokes with obscure chord changes and complex harmonies. (“It’s not supposed to be elitist music,” says Reis, “but that’s what it has become, kind of.”) These cynics--all right, haters--are undoubtedly narrow-minded, but their assessment gets at one truth: it’s rare to hear of jazz musicians who lack any formal training.

Going further, it seems that studies are a major factor in jazz musicians’ success. All of the musicians interviewed for this article talked about their university years as formative in their creative identities and careers. University is where you study (perhaps with one of the greats), meet future bandmates, make connections, get opportunities to play for audiences who care.

This comes in contrast to other forms of music, where education is less central. In rock, pop, electronic or hip-hop music, for example--let’s call these “pop genres”--stars are much less likely to be institutionally decorated. “I’m not sure if [such] musicians necessarily need a musical education to be very good,” observes Scheer, pointing out that, anyway, degree programmes in those genres are hard to find.

Routes to success in pop genres are also therefore different. It tends to rely more nebulously on freelance audience-building: becoming a Youtube hit, a grassroots touring sensation, an underground symbol of counterculture. Luxembourg probably lacks the critical mass for parasystemic success of this type. And, speaking anecdotally, it does seem that the country produces relatively few pop stars.

But indeed, the country excels when it comes to systems, with (comparatively) fantastic levels of funding for its schools, cultural venues and export organisations. And modern, formal education itself is systemic: you complete levels, pass exams, learn from accredited professionals. It’s a system that crosses national lines very easily, too. A bachelor’s from one university will get you into a master’s programme in some distant country, a first prize in jazz from a Luxembourg conservatory will get you into a course in Amsterdam, Boston, wherever.

Serious Luxembourg musicians are forced to go abroad for their studies and inject themselves in this wider community. They are forced to package themselves as competitive international musicians. They are forced to attend all those classes in theory, arranging and harmony. Probably this all comes together positively for the jazz scene.

But let’s return to Gast Waltzing’s dining room for the final word on this.

“So many great musicians produced here. Why? Is it education?”

He barely draws breath: “It’s education.”