Born in Heidelberg, Meinhard “Obi” Jenne showed interest in music from an early age: he started playing drums at the age of six and made his first recording at the age of nine. During his childhood and youth, he enjoyed an intensive education on all percussion instruments as well as the piano, and afterwards, in 1988, at 17, he began his study of classical percussion at the State College for Music in Trossingen with Prof. Franz Lang. During his time at the college and parallel to his studies, Jenne was involved in productions of almost all of the radio-symphony orchestras in Germany, the Ensemble Modern and German Brass and has also spent a year each working on a fixed basis with the National Theatre of Mannheim and, as an Akademist, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. His interest in jazz and groove-music is above all closely linked to the two musical days that Jenne spent with Elvin Jones as a 12-year-old boy. Jenne proves his ability to interact through his collaboration with for example the German Jazz Masters, Wolfgang Dauner, Klaus Doldinger, Manfred Schoof and Wolfgang Schmid, but also with his musician’s collective Band in the BIX, that has existed for 15 years. With an exceptionally extensive line-up, Obi Jenne presents the Stuttgart Jazz Orchestra in 2009, which performs on one hand compositions and arrangements of the resident composers and on the other, together with Wolfgang Dauner, interpets the original arrangements of the United Jazz- & Rock-Ensemble.

In 2014 the David Gazarov Trio is formed, a classical jazz trio which gives with the project Bachology an amazing new perspective on the works of J. S. Bach. Another “hobby horse” for Obi Jenne is cooperation with vocal talents and he is proud to have been a member of Helen Schneider’s group for 10 years alongside Jo Ambros and Mini Schulz. In 2009 Jenne started the Soul Diamonds and devotes himself to his old love for R&B, soul jazz, gospel and pop from the ’70s until today. Jenne recorded numerous CDs and played or still plays with musicians such as Art Farmer, Jimmy Woode, Benny Golson, Ack van Rooyen, Chuck Berry, Xavier Naidoo, Imaani Saleen, Pointer Sisters, Les McCann, Janice Dixon, Cécile Verny, Klaus Graf Quartett, Olaf Polziehn, Max Greger Jr., David Gazarov Trio, Bill Ramsey, Kenny Wheeler, Katie Melua, Till Brönner, Chaka Khan and many more. Jenne is a founder of ACF (Kosho, Joo Kraus), Hoppel Hoppel Rhythm club (for this project he received the price of the German Recording Industry together with his collegues) and The Wright Thing. He is also the artistic leader of the Porsche Big Band Stuttgart. Since 2020 Meinhard “Obi” Jenne is the drummer of the Frank Dupree Trio.