Dear Simon,
Congratulations on your 66th birthday from the entire LOFT team: we are delighted that you will be celebrating this day with a concert at the LOFT, the place you call your “second home”.

For half your life – 33 years – you have not only been present at the LOFT with your concerts and productions, but have also been a loyal companion and good friend to us over the years. The first time we met was in March 1990, when you rented the LOFT at short notice for a trio rehearsal with Mark Helias and Barry Altschul.
On March 22nd, 1991, you played your first solo concert with us, and that was the beginning of an incredibly fruitful collaboration for both sides, because no one has made us and the recording studio in the LOFT known with as many concerts and productions of always outstanding quality as you – for that, a heartfelt thank you.

What do I remember in particular? When your parents visited us in September 2007, we organized a concert for you at very short notice. Your parents sat in the front row and listened to your Herbie Nichols program – the recording of this concert has also become a great CD – and since you played in front of the large window, I was able to watch them well. Of course, I also remember the duos with Nils Wogram, Matthias Schubert, Paulo Alvares or Frank Gratkowski (just recently great again), or the big project that we realized together with WDR, Deutschlandfunk and the cultural department of Bayer AG, especially the recording of The Master And Margarita with the recently deceased trumpeter Herb Robertson, the violinist Mark Feldman and your trio with Mark Helias and Tom Rainey.

I love the recording shall we dance, which was published by 2ndFLOOR edition, with the wonderful cover by Norman Junge, whose work you greatly appreciated, and then the many chamber music projects of recent years, but also the concerts with young musicians from the Cologne scene, e.g. the concert with Mark Dresser and Dominik Mahnig, or the productions with Leonhard Huhn, Philip Zoubek, Stefan Schönegg, Dominik Mahnig.
I read on the net: “Simon Nabatov – public figure”. I would elaborate: Simon, you are a musician, pianist and a personality in the Cologne music scene who has always enriched it immensely, and who one cannot and does not want to imagine it without.

We wish you and your music many, many more years,
Hans Martin, Lis & Benedikt