Australia-Tour 1992
The band plays with fire and precision, has a brilliant brass section, a strong crop of soloists and a superb big-band drummer […] The band is at home in all styles of the big band spectrum, […] reeds blended beautifully on „You’re My Everything“, the band swung easily on the Basie-styled „Fred My Pal“ and effortlessly roared through „Lovers‘ Quarrel“ and „Now You See It“. The band’s showing augurs well for the future of German jazz.
The Australian
These young world-class musicians showed their skills in a commendably funky and easy way. First-class jazz and humorous entertainment.
Die Woche in Australien
When 3000 people come to a jazz concert in Germany, this is a sensation even for well-known musicians performing at festivals. At the Sydney Festival, Kicks & Sticks played in front of 80,000 people, a dimension that is normally reserved for stars of the rock and pop business.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
After the successful tour through East Africa, Kicks and Sticks‘ Australia-Tour was again a great success. The band received enthusiastic reviews. Absolute highlights of the tour were stage appearances together with the fantastic guest soloists: the Australian jazz pope Don Burrow in Portland and Nat Adderly at the Montsalvat Jazz Festival in Melbourne. Nat Adderly was so electrified by the band, that he played a spontaneous solo with the Kicks & Sticks. Don Burrows also came onto the stage and heated the vibes with a solo in „Things ain’t what they used to be“. A success not only for the young musicians, but also for their band-leader Wolfgang Diefenbach, whom Don Burrows shook hands with after the concert in Sydney with the compliment: ‚You’ve got a great band‘.
Jazz Podium
On the fifth continent, the young jazz players celebrated boundless great success at festivals in dimensions which are hardly imaginable in Germany (80,000 jazz fans at the Sydney Festival were only the tip of the iceberg). The band received enthusiastic reviews by press and television as well as additional praise and recognition from Australian jazz stars such as Nat Adderley and Don Burrows.
Wiesbadener Kurier
The musicians were so successful that Australian TV broadcast parts of the joint concerts with the native saxophone pope Don Burrows and the jazz legend Nat Adderley all over the continent. The Australian newspapers were rhapsodic and wrote fantastic reviews about the young Hessian musicians.
Wiesbadener Tagblatt
East Africa-Tour 1989
The Hessen State Youth Jazz Orchestra recently returned from their extremely successful East Africa-Tour, where they always played to a capacity crowd with their intoxicating way of mixing swing, rock and funk titles with Latin-American rhythms.
Frankfurter Rundschau
The modern hymn „We are the world“, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie for the starving children of the world, was chosen as the last title of the concert and found an enthusiastic audience. Standing ovations even during the encores made this an emotional experience.
Jazz Podium
The joint performance of Kicks & Sticks with a native African drum orchestra in Zimbabwe and Madagascar was a great experience. All in all, the orchestra had an audience of 12,000–15,000 people. One of the tour highlights was a reception given by Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, where the young musicians gave a concert for about one hundred guests. The president was very thrilled and emphasized that he had never heard his national anthem in such an intoxicating manner before.
Wiesbadener Kurier
