The reason why I founded Jazz Palace

Just a few days ago, I was standing on stage in Hamburg at 12min.me, speaking about Jazz Palace. In that talk, I shared how it all began—how the idea of Jazz Palace first came to life. I recorded the presentation for you, so if you’d like, you can watch the full video on YouTube.

I didn’t become a jazz musician myself. But my parents—both church musicians—gave me music from the very beginning. I grew up with it. It wasn’t a hobby; it was part of everyday life. My father was also a tinkerer and builder. When I was seven, he gave me my first laptop. That’s when it started: I became fascinated by computers. At twelve, I saw an Ice Age movie for the first time—and I was completely blown away by that 3D world. I wanted to do that too. I wanted to create 3D animations, build virtual spaces, tell stories.

At fourteen, I did my first internships at large companies. And around eighteen, I started building my own 3D models. I really dove into it. After graduating from high school, I had another six months before my next step and was able to work at Congaz, a production studio in Düsseldorf. There, I built the virtual backdrop for a car project—an actual installation with three screens. I animated the entire 3D world behind it. That was ten years ago. But even back then, I kept trying to connect my passion for music with my love for animation.

Then I faced the big question: What now? Apprenticeship? University? Media designer? Communication design? But honestly, I was tired of exams and tests. I wanted to start creating right away. So in 2016, I made a spontaneous decision and became self-employed. I walked into the optician next door with a presentation folder under my arm and said: Your website needs an update. That’s how it began. I designed logos, corporate identities, websites—for restaurateurs, for a church choir, for an engineering firm, for a defibrillator distributor.

But I was so perfectionistic and passionate about my work that financially, it didn’t quite add up at first. So I worked as a waiter on the side. A lot. Every weekend in a large event venue hosting weddings. Two, sometimes four weddings per weekend. Eighteen-hour shifts. Completely exhausting—but also incredibly inspiring. It was that festive atmosphere that captivated me. And at some point—I was sitting at home again, working on my 3D projects, listening to music, searching for solutions—everything came together: my musical upbringing, my passion for design, and that festive energy.

I wanted to build a palace for jazz. That was my idea. And at first, it was just a dream, a castle in the clouds—and it was supposed to be outrageously expensive. To give you an idea: imagine the parties from The Great Gatsby. About that. Not much less than that.

Now, I could have started saving money for it. But instead, I thought: what we really need is a community, a network, a collective force. We need to gather the people who love jazz in one place and build something together. That was the founding idea behind Jazz Palace.

At that time, I wasn’t a web developer. I was a designer. So I took all the hard-earned money from waiting tables and tried to outsource the project to India. The first version of the website didn’t even look that bad. But unfortunately, the developers promised more than they could deliver. So I had to step in myself. I taught myself HTML and CSS and rebuilt everything from scratch. In 2017, I developed my first own platform—with login, profile picture uploads, musician profiles, organizer profiles, event management, booking requests—everything you’d need for your own social network.

The only problem: it gets boring pretty quickly when you’re the only person active on it. And that’s exactly why I now want to win the jazz scene over for this project.

Jazz is improvisation. Jazz is live music. Composition in the moment. That doesn’t work through streaming. People don’t make their living from that. Instead, there are grants, donations, membership fees. But above all: loyal fans.

And jazz is diverse. Fusion, jazz rock, blues, electro swing, nu jazz—you name it. But those four-hour “relaxing background music” videos on YouTube—that’s not jazz to me. Jazz is where people are. And Germany is the most populous country in Europe. We have the largest jazz scene on the continent.

In Hamburg—my hometown—there’s so much jazz happening. If you’re curious, just go to jazzpalace.com and enter your postal code. We’ve contacted over 300 organizers across Germany, and nearly 100 are already on board. Many of them from Hamburg. In Hamburg, jazz even receives more funding than elsewhere—an increase of 10% while funding is being cut in many other places.

I want to connect 100 clubs, 1,000 artists, and 10,000 fans. Because each of them has their own interests:

Artists want to get on stage.

Organizers want full venues.

Fans want to experience great concerts.

With my web development know-how, I help organizers refresh their websites and distribute their concerts more effectively. For this, we developed a WordPress plugin that can automatically distribute concert information.

And step by step, I hope we’ll move a little closer to the dream of the Jazz Palace.