Harry Pepl – September 10, 1945 - December 5, 2005
“The history of Jazz in Austria is not necessarily identical with the history of Austrian jazz, whose development started later as the initial encounters of the Austrian audience with this music”. With these true words starts the book by Klaus Schulz ‘Jazz In Österreich (Jazz In Austria) 1920 – 1960, published in 2003 and still a valuable source of information for the German-speaking researcher. Before WW I jazz was only heard when US musicians were touring the country and they found an interested and enthusiastic audience, especially in Vienna and Graz. Louis Douglas was one of these artists coming to the country, as well as various dance and music revues. After the war it took some time for US musicians to return to Austria, but meanwhile a few artists had started to copy the new music and even to compose ragtimes and cakewalks. The new music wasn’t always received well and especially the political traditionalists criticised these revues with racist undertones. Composer Ernst Krenek’s jazz opera ‘Jonny spielt auf’ (Johnny plays) in 1927 and Josephine Baker’s visit to Vienna especially enraged the nationalist and anti-Semitic press. Krenek’s opera later would be prohibited and labelled ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Degenerated Art) by the Nazis.
With the global economic depression of the early thirties less US bands would come to Austria, therefore local musicians stepped in to provide the hungry audiences with the new music – Ernst Holzer, who made 2 two jazz recordings for Polydor in 1930, featuring Josef Hadraba on trombone and band leader Bobby Sax (Ernst Moritz Sachs) were two of the most important musicians of that time. Jazz had an active scene and audience more or less until Hitler’s ‘Anschluss’ (Annexation) of Austria to the German Reich in 1938. Many influential musicians, including Bobby Sax, left the country in fear of prosecution. For the jazz fan only illegal listening sessions in private homes or clubs were a possibility to listen to new recordings. Close to the end of the war, some dance orchestras, with a new name and arrangement, occasionally added an American jazz composition to their repertoire, under great risk, but to the enjoyment of their audiences.
In December of 1945, the year WW II ended, Harry Pepl was born in Vienna into a family of music lovers, especially of classical music and jazz. Austria, divided in sectors by the allies, was only slowly getting back on its feet and especially the Americans (and interestingly the Russians in Vienna) helped by allowing dances and entertainment. The US Forces even started a radio station, Blue Danube Network, where as well jazz would be played, so offering wide access to this music and being a big influence to young musicians. Around 1948 saxophonist Hans Koller was one of the first local jazz musicians introducing Bebop to the Viennese audiences. And in the following year pianist Josef Erich ‘Joe’ Zawinul was offered a job to perform in an American soldier’s club. Joe was as well part of the first Austrian jazz group that got international recognition – The Austrian All Stars, featuring beside Joe on the piano, Karl Drewo on tenor sax, Hans Salomon, saxes and clarinet, Rudolf Hanson on bass and Viktor Plasil on drums. The piano chair was occasionally occupied by Friedrich Gulda, already an established and famous classical pianist, known for his marvellous interpretations of Mozart’s works. They formed in 1952 and lasted until Zawinul emigrated to the US in 1959 to try his luck overseas.
Meanwhile an eight-year-old Harry Pepl started to make music on his own, having just got his first instrument – an accordion, on which he already started to improvise. 1955 Austria became an independent country again and Hans Koller’s New Jazz Stars played as the first ever jazz band at the prestigious Musikverein to critical acclaim. In the same year clarinettist Fatty George opened his club, Fatty’s Salon in the centre of Vienna, soon becoming the place to listen to jazz gigs and the late-night jam sessions. At the age of 15 Harry got his first guitar and started to play around on it, trying to find his way on the new instrument. And he started to listen to jazz guitarists, especially Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow and Wes Montgomery. He listened, transcribed and practiced. He studied classical guitar with Prof. Karl Scheit, expanded his education at the Vienna Conservatory and, in addition to his work as a musician with the successful Beat group Austrian Evergreens, soon appeared as a sideman in various jazz formations. On the 1964 single by the Evergreens, ‘Skinny Minny’, Pepl composed the B-Side, titled ‘Olymp’, one of the first of his compositions to be recorded.
In the mid 1960’s trombone player Erich Kleinschuster started his first band and a year later Erich would start his work with the Austrian Radio Company ORF, for which he arranged a series of live recordings in their studios, before becoming the head of the jazz department at the broadcast company. He initiated the ORF Big Band and invited many international jazz musicians to perform with them, including Art Farmer. Avantgarde jazz came at the same time from the US to Europe and in Austria was expertly performed by a few groups, of which the Reform Art Unit of Fritz Novotny became the most famous one. On the other hand, jazz fusion found its fans within the Austrian scene of musicians as well and in 1970 guitarist Karl Ratzer and keyboarder Peter Wolf (who would go on to play with Frank Zappa and become a very successful producer in the US) founded the group Gypsy Love.
Harry played his first jazz gigs with the Harald Neuwirth Consort and the Erich Kleinschuster Sextett, worked as a sought-after studio musician and live with the ORF Big Band and pop artists like Peter Alexander. One of the earliest jazz recordings of Harry came when he was invited to go into the studio with the ORF Big Band under composer Roland Kovacs in 1974 and on the album ‘King Size’ is playing the solo in the title track and the song ‘Operation Rose’ and showing already his individual sound and amazing technique. He recorded again with the ORF Big Band, that time under Richard Österreicher in 1976, soloing on the title ‘Leave Me’. Other formations Harry Pepl played in throughout the Seventies were Conception M, a group formed by pianist Albert Mair; Harry Pepl Trio with Peter Ponger and Joris Dudli, playing in the style of Miles’ ‘Bitches Brew’; Trio Infernal with Adelhard Roidinger and drummer Erich Bachtraegl, Hip Jargon, the first band in which he played with composer / vibraphonist Werner Pirchner; Heavyweight with Hans Salomon, Austria Drei and many others, including the Erich Kleinschuster Sextett, with whom he recorded the album ‘St. Gerolder Messe’ in 1978. Swiss pianist, composer and arranger Mathias Rüegg formed in 1977 together with alto sax player Wolfgang Puschnig and others the Vienna Art Orchestra and in 1979 they recorded their first album ‘Tango From Obango’, and Harry Pepl is playing on one track of this legendary recording. And that year he started to teach jazz guitar at the Music Conservatory in Graz and continued to do so until 1995, having been made Professor in 1984.
It was in 1980 that Harry really made waves on the international jazz circuit. First with the debut album of his duo with Werner Pirchner, called Jazzzwio, recorded for the German Mood label and titled ‘Gegenwind’ (Headwind). And secondly by touring and recording with jazz world star Benny Goodman. In an interview I did with Harry in 1984 he explained to me how he met Werner Pirchner and how the Jazzzwio was born: he was playing at that time in a trio with bass player Wayne Darling and drummer Fritz Ozmec and they wanted to add a fourth sound, but as they couldn’t find a pianist at the time, they had, on recommendation of Fritz Ozmec, vibraphonist Pirchner come in for a session and hired him. Harry and Werner began to experiment occasionally during soundchecks without the rest of the band, and quickly after they started playing gigs, excited “by the possibilities of the duo”. Harry knew Benny Goodman’s music from his father being a fan and so he took the job after some hesitation and started to play with Benny and recorded 3 albums with the band leader. “He swings like hell”, Harry would say about Goodman, who left him space to express himself and would encourage him to play his individual style. The recordings with Goodman were the live album ‘Berlin 1980’, the soundtrack ‘Fantasma D’Amore’ and another live recording, this time from Copenhagen, titled ‘Farewell’, as the soundtrack recorded in 1981. Playing with Benny was fun, but not really what Harry wanted to do musically long-term and therefore he stopped and toured more frequently with Werner as the Jazzzwio. Their concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981 was recorded and released a few months after the event and got incredible reviews all around Europe and was seen as an instant European jazz classic. To create his personal sound, Harry used a Roland rack in which he integrated a stereo pre-amp, an amp, an echo-machine and two digital relays. That does delay his signal – meaning in one channel it goes directly and in the other with minimal delay. “This creates a real nice sound” he told me. The duo not only gave Harry a stage for his tremendous talent as guitarist and improviser, but as well as composer, as he and Werner wrote most of their repertoire themselves. In 1980 / 1981 Harry recorded as well with Runo Ericksson’s Omnibus, featuring Charlie Mariano; the Joachim-Ernst Berendt produced ‘String Summit’; a project featuring Leszek Zadlo titled ‘The Loss’ and with Adelhard Roidinger the album ‘Schattseite’ for ECM Records, so having his first contact with label head Manfred Eicher.
photo Pepl Family Collection
While Harry was building his reputation as one of Europe’s most interesting and unique guitarists, the Austrian jazz scene went through a very productive and interesting period. This had mainly two reasons: The Vienna Art Orchestra, out of which a handful of incredible young musicians came and founded smaller groups between them, like Part Or Art, Pat Brothers and Airmail and secondly because of the excellent education musicians could get at the Music Conservatory in Graz, headed by saxophonist Karlheinz Miklin. From there the scene welcomed musicians like the brothers Christian (p, tb) and Wolfgang Muthspiel (git), as well as, to just name a few, bass player Peter Herbert and drummer Alex Deutsch. The mid 80’s saw the emergence of a new big band and with that a new breeding ground for young artists: Nouvelle Cuisine, founded by Christoph Cech and Christian Mühlbacher and artists like Franz Koglmann and Max Nagl started to create a buzz for their work as well. Airmail was a group featuring from the Vienna Art Orchestra alto saxophonist, flutist Wolfgang Puschnig and drummer Wolfgang Reisinger, plus Pepl and Mike Richmond (Mingus Dynasty) on bass. They started touring in Austria, but before they were to record their first album, Harry and Werner fulfilled a dream by recording for ECM, this time with drummer Jack De Johnette. Originally planned as a quartet recording with Dave Holland, but the bassist got ill just before the recording date and the decision was made to record anyway, but as a trio. Despite this initial setback, as both Harry and Werner had looked forward to record with Dave Holland, the album is outstanding in terms of compositions and performances.
I met Harry first in 1984, when Wolfgang Puschnig invited me to a concert of Airmail in Vienna and I encountered a very humble, charismatic and private person with a great sense of humour. Someone who was constantly looking for new ideas and ways to express himself. I interviewed him for Jazz Live, the Austrian jazz magazine, the same year and afterwards loosely stayed in touch with the guitarist. The group Airmail recorded their first album in 1985 for the German Moers Music label and it became soon clear to Harry that this could be something special and therefore the band rehearsed more than he ever did before. And it paid off – the band got tighter and tighter and played with power and understanding. Meanwhile Pepl and Pirchner had developed in different directions musically and the Jazzzwio kind of faded out. In 2003 a live concert from 1985 at the Viennese jazz café ‘miles smiles’ was released, featuring as well Georg Polansky on drums and is the last document of their work together. Finally in 2008 the Montreux album of 1981 was re-issued as ‘Live In Concerts’, together with a concert from 1984 in Innsbruck and the special edition of the release featured a DVD with the film of the Montreux concert and an interview with both musicians.
Harry focused on Airmail, but continued to appear as sideman for recordings or tours. He was back recording for ECM as well, this time in 1986 with the Enrico Rava / Dino Saluzzi quintet, featuring as well bass player Furio Di Castri and American drummer Bruce Ditmas. They promoted the 1987 release of the album with a European tour, at some dates featuring Bob Moses on drums. The next record for the German label Harry did in equal billing with Herbert Joos, (tp, flh) and drummer Jon Christensen, titled ‘Cracked Mirrors’. They recorded in February 1987 and Harry composed most of the album and even played, for the first time on record, on one track on the piano. The other novelty here is Harry’s use of the MIDI guitar, to “expand the boundaries of his instrument”. The concerts of the trio generally received amazing reviews, always highlighting the amazing sounds Harry could produce on his guitar. A few months later Airmail were on tour again and decided to record their new album ‘Light Blues’ during two nights in Wels, to be released in 1988 by PolyGram Austria, for which at the time I was responsible for the jazz productions. Harry and Puschnig had asked me if I would be interested in releasing the new music and I gladly agreed to do so. The album was put out all over Europe and got wonderful reviews, especially Pepl’s work with the MIDI guitar, which opened up the soundscape of the group tremendously. Airmail was special to Harry not only because of the space and freedom he had in the group, but as well because of his connection with sax player Wolfgang Puschnig, who, as Harry stated, “always could play even the most complicated pieces”. Harry was as well invited to play one track with Wolfgang on his debut album ‘Pieces Of The Dream’ in 1988.
Around that time Harry as well started to perform and record with French clarinettist Michel Portal and at one of the groups he met Dave Liebman and Mino Cinelu and he kept in touch with both artists, hoping to record with them under his own name in the future.
photo Pepl Family Collection
In 1989 Harry suffered a stroke and took a break for his recovery, which was completed later that year. Harry came to my office one day with the idea to record a piano album for PolyGram Austria. Which I found a bit surprising, but … OK. Actually, it wasn’t really a piano album, because he wanted to play the left hand and the right hand separately on his guitar into a midi computer, then transfer these files into a computer piano, so that the sound in the end was an original piano sound, even so played on the guitar. I like crazy ideas and this was definitely one – we booked the studio in the Konzerthaus in Vienna, had a Bösendorfer Computer-Piano 290 SE brought in, hired the band for the recording (David Liebman on soprano sax, Johannes Enders on tenor sax on two tracks, and Wolfgang Reisinger on drums) and made the record. It was truly a strange experiment seeing the musicians playing to the piano … without a pianist! And then we set up a release concert in the smaller room of the Konzerthaus, this time with Wolfgang Puschnig on alto sax and flutes, Harry doing the pedals on the piano and drummer Wolfgang Reisinger. The album was called ‘Schönberg Improvations’, a mix of the two words improvisation and variation, as the album was influenced by Glenn Gold’s ‘Goldberg Variations’. Musically, I still find this album exciting, challenging and powerful. Unfortunately, when the first reviews came out, most writers focused on the technical side of the production and less on the musical part … same for the concert. Only the 2004 reissue gave the album the credit it, in my opinion, deserved; the liner notes by Andreas Felber state that it was „without a doubt the most spectacular record of one of the most original guitar players of European Jazz in those years”.
Most of the early 90’s Harry built on his ‘instant composing’ technique and moved closer to contemporary classical music as he transferred his improvisations into notated instant compositions for various ensembles, including the Kronos Quartet. Pepl explains his method on the example of the composition for Kronos:
«In my method, which is caught in the pair of terms ‘instant composing’ and ‘real-time composing’, both areas experience a rare, paradoxical fusion. My starting point is the guitar, or more precisely: the MIDI guitar, which is capable of adopting a multitude of timbres (e.g. violin, cello…). As an instrumentalist, I can camouflage myself with its help, so to speak. Although I play the guitar, I am able to slip into the timbre of every conceivable instrument. When composing the string quartet for the Kronos Quartet, I improvised freely, in accordance with my method. After inventing a voice, I improvised the remaining three by spontaneously reacting to this finished voice. The result is printed out as a score and then presented to the players for interpretation as a finished work. So, what is performed as a fixed work is a product of momentary inspiration, is the result of spontaneous improvisation and also of reacting to this improvisation. It becomes a composition through the fact that it is notated and is also conceived for a special sound group, in this case the Kronos Quartet. Of course, it also takes on the character of a work in that, although spontaneously conceived, it contains enough substance to be understood as a work to be interpreted. The relationship to improvisation is preserved in that spontaneously conceived ideas are not corrected, which is decisive. What happens in the moment of creation remains untouched. In this method, my musical aesthetics, which attach decisive importance to the unrepeatable moment of sound production, is expressed very clearly. From the spirit of spontaneity and in the confrontation with the available, defined playing time, the improviser has to achieve a maximum: A maximum of novelty, of surprise, ultimately of inspired quality. In such an aesthetic, the ideal goal of an improvisation is probably also captured. Namely: to play a sequence of notes at the moment that is so successful that it does not need any reworking and is substantial enough to be interpreted as a composition by other instruments. Thus, it would be a lasting portrait of the current state of a musical subject».
In 1992 Harry recorded in New York with his quartet the album ‘N.Y.C. Impressure’ one day after having a concert there at the Knitting Factory. The group, which featured Claus Stötter on trumpet, Paul Novinski on bass and drummer Jojo Mayer, played as well gigs in Europe, but overall was a short time project. Despite not liking New York, Pepl recorded another album there in 1994, this time with the ensemble Abstract Truth, put together by Austrian trombone player and label owner Paul Zauner and featured next to Harry and Paul, John Purcell on tenor sax, Kenny Davis on bass and Ronnie Burrage on drums. They played a few shows as well, but then, in 1994, Harry unfortunately suffered another stroke and again needed time for a complete recovery. His blood pressure nevertheless remained very high and on recommendations by his doctors he had to stop performing publicly and had to leave his position as Professor at the Music Conservatory in Graz.
While recovering he started to play the piano as a way to relax and as an outlet for his still incredible creativity. “When playing the piano I have a lot of freedom. Unencumbered by profession or image I am able to immerse myself in the sound of the instrument, the acoustics of the room, in the ambience, the instant. After a few moments I don’t feel time anymore. An emotion of happiness floats through me and the sounds stream on their own”. Pepl records 1995 his first piano solo album ‘Consequence’ at the Bösendorfer company, but didn’t release the music. In 1996 he recorded his second piano solo album ‘Flow’ on a Steinway in the Musikverein, released in the fall of the same year. ‘Flow’ is exactly that – Harry sat down at the piano, which he never really learned to play, nor practised, and plays, let’s the music flow through him. The result is as pure as it gets – no corrections or overdubs. The essence of Harry Pepl: “The moment I make music or compose in an inspired way – which is the same for me – I believe in the absolute: in the truth in which all opposites coincide”.
The following years saw Harry continue to work in the genre of contemporary classical music through his instant composing technique and start recording at his home studio under the project name ‘Lonely Single Swinger Band’. In 2004 some of this music was performed via a feed with live musicians and visuals by his friend jazz photographer Rainer Rygalyk.
photo Pepl Family Collection
On December 5th, 2005 Harry Pepl passed away in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.
Some of Harry’s recordings (he plays all instruments) as the Lonely Single Swinger Band have been released digitally – in 2019 ‘Art Of Trio, Vol.1’, a wonderful guitar driven 4 track EP that is really pure Pepl; and in 2020 ‘Harry Pepl’s Lonely Single Swinger Band, Volume One’, again showcasing Pepl’s instant composing technique and improvising skills. He truly was a one-man band then. His most famous compositions, first among many ‘Air, Love And Vitamins’, have been recorded several times by young jazz musicians from Austria and beyond and his contemporary classical pieces are performed and have as well been recorded by various ensembles.
Sources:
Klaus Schulz, Jazz In Österreich 1920 – 1960, Album Verlag 2003
Andreas Felber, Austria, The History Of European Jazz, edited by Francesco Martinelli, Equinox 2018
Johannes Kunz, Als der Jazz nach Österreich kam, Wiener Zeitung 29./30. April 2023
Nikolaus Kohler, Harry Pepl: Ein Porträt des Musikers und Komponisten, Diplomarbeit (unpublished), 2006
Jazz Live, Österreichiches Jazz Magazin, various articles by Rainer Rygalyk & Wulf Müller, 1983 – 1985
Daniel Pepl, with special thanks for his tremendous support and providing information as well as the photos from the family collection
Wulf Müller, A Life In Music, Amazon Direct, 2022
Andreas Felber, Liner Notes to re-issue of ‘Schoenberg Improvations’, 2004
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