Marleen Dahms is a berlin based trombonist, improviser and composer.
After she saw Lisa Simpson screaming her soul out of her saxophone in an episode of the simpsons at 8 years old, she started playing the alto a few weeks later. As a teenager she additionally learned trombone and piano.
She did a bachelors degree in jazz trombone at the Jazz-Institute-Berlin (UdK/Hanns-Eisler), did an Erasmus semester in Lucerne and learned from Nils Wogram, Geoffroy de Masure, Heinrich Köbberling, Gerry Hemingway and Greg Cohen among others.
As a bandleader she composes for her quintet „AllOY“ and plays/-ed as a member and sidewomxn in different projects such as „Electronic Swing Orchestra“, „Zaunkoenig“, „Skazka Orchestra“, „Omniversal Earkestra“, „Panda Do Sol“, „Magnetic Ghost Orchestra“, the „Syncopation Society“, Été Large, "Babylon Orchestra" among others.
She shared the stage with artist such as Melissa Aldana, Julia Hülsmann, Theo Croker, Matt Brewer, Jiggs Wiggham, Perico Sambeat as well as Revolverheld and Kool Savas. Concerts and tours lead her to Ghana, Ecuador, Colombia, Russia, France, Italy, Czech-Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, Switzerland und Poland.
2013 she lived in Ecuador for 10 months and travelled to Cuba, Colombia and Ecuador for 3 months again during her studies to learn from trombonists and other musicians of he Salsa- and Cumbia Scene (German Guerrero, Amaury Perez, Ramon Torrivilla) and played in local bands. With a scholarship of the DAAD she did a 7-weeks trip to Accra (Ghana) and learned and played with local jazz musicians and the all female highlife band „Lipstick Band“.
She is the founder of a feminist reading group for womxn and non-binary jazzmusicians and co-founder and artistic director of the project BUMMM! (Being Unique Makes Meaningful Music), a series of jam sessions for womxn, non-binary and other historically underrespresented gender identities in the jazz and improv scene of berlin and beyond.
