Being Hipp

A film about music, courage and the disappearance of a legend

Who was Jutta Hipp?

A German jazz pianist who asserted herself against all odds in the male-dominated jazz world of New York in the 1950s. The first white woman to receive a recording contract with Blue Note Records. An artist celebrated by the press, revered by colleagues – and yet: after a few years she fell silent, left the stage and from then on worked anonymously in a textile factory in Queens.

What happened? Why did one of the most exciting figures in jazz history simply disappear?

BEING HIPP goes in search of traces. The film not only tells the story of a fascinating musician, but also unfolds a panorama of transatlantic jazz culture at a time of upheaval – between war and the post-war period, new beginnings and marginalization, hope and loneliness.

Legendary jazz greats such as David Amram, Lou Donaldson and Sheila Jordan, who knew Jutta Hipp personally, remember a woman full of talent, charisma and contradiction. Her biographer Ilona Haberkamp shares previously unpublished archive material, Clara Haberkamp reinterprets Hipp’s music, and the renowned Harvard professor Ingrid Monson analyzes the political and cultural tensions in which Jutta Hipp operated

Terri Lyne Carrignton and Cecil McBee, other important voices in today’s jazz scene, give the film depth – as a tribute to a woman who was far ahead of her time.

With cinematic elegance, musical passion and documentary depth, BEING HIPP paints the portrait of an artist who never wanted to please – and thus made herself a legend.