Horst Lippmann

Horst Lippmann (17 March 1927 in Eisenach, Germany – 18 May 1997 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German jazz musician, concert promoter, writer and television director, best known as promoter of the influential American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe during and after the 1960s.

The son of a hotelier, Lippmann played drums in the illegal Frankfurter Hot Club in the 1940s, and wrote for one of the first German jazz magazines, Mitteilungen für Freunde der modernen Tanzmusik (Messages for Friends of Modern Dance Music).

After the war he played in the combos of the Hot Club with Günter Boaz.

Together with Olaf Hudtwalcker [de], he was involved in the founding of the German Jazz Federation [de], and organized and participated in concert tours by the West German jazz clubs.

The festivals were arranged almost annually during the 1960s, performing in England and France as well as Germany and being recorded for television programmes, and brought such musicians as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Lonnie Johnson, Big Joe Williams, John Lee Hooker, Skip James, Little Walter, Buddy Guy, and Memphis Slim before European audiences for the first time.