Hans Koch (born March 12, 1948) is a Swiss clarinetist, saxophonist, and film score composer. While trained in classical music, he has spent the majority of his career performing in other genres such as jazz, rock, avant-garde, and electronic music. [1]
Hans Albrecht Koch was born in Villmergen, Switzerland on March 12, 1948. He trained as a classical clarinetist before joining Werner Lüdi's Sunnymoon; a jazz band with whom he first performed at the Jazz Festival Willisau in 1981. He performed and recorded with a variety of jazz musicians in the 1980s; including recordings made with saxophonist Urs Blöchlinger (1983), Peter Schärli’s quintet (beginning in 1984), Lüdi (1987), and Cecil Taylor’s Big Band Berlin (1988). He traveled with cellist Martin Schütz in 1987 to Manhattan where they worked in the avant-garde music scene. [1]
In 1990 Koch performed and recorded in a jazz trio with pianist Paul Bley and trumpeter Franz Koglmann. That same year he formed another trio with drummer Fredy Studer and Martin Schütz that fused electronic music, jazz, dance music, and avante-garde music. This group recorded the album Hardcore Chambermusic (1994, Intakt Records). In 1993 he founded another trio, Holz für Europa, with multi-instrumentalist woodwind player Wolfgang Fuchs and saxophonist Peter van Bergen. He joined the Barry Guy New Orchestra in 2000. [1]
Koch composed the film scores to Meine Freunde in der DDR (1990), Höhenfeuer (1985), [1] Die Kunst der exakten Phantasie (2006), Das Schiff des Torjägers (2010), Pepe Mujica in Pepe Mujica - Lessons from the Flowerbed (2014), and Stand Up My Beauty (2021).
Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting, and became preoccupied with creating something new. The term "free jazz" was drawn from the 1960 Ornette Coleman recording Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. Europeans tend to favor the term "free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music".
Cecil Percival Taylor was an American pianist and poet.
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music inspired by bebop and big band that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and a lighter tone than that used in the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that of contemporaneous jazz idioms. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill suggest, "the tonal sonorities of these conservative players could be compared to pastel colors, while the solos of [Dizzy] Gillespie and his followers could be compared to fiery red colors."
Larry Don Austin was an American composer noted for his electronic and computer music works. He was a co-founder and editor of the avant-garde music periodical Source: Music of the Avant Garde. Austin gained additional international recognition when he realized a completion of Charles Ives's Universe Symphony. Austin served as the president of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) from 1990 to 1994 and served on the board of directors of the ICMA from 1984 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1998.
Han Bennink is a Dutch drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, banjo and piano.
John Gilmore was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and percussionist. He was known for his tenure with the avant-garde keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra from the 1950s to the 1990s, and led The Sun Ra Arkestra from Sun Ra's death in 1993 until his own death in 1995.
Ellery Eskelin is an American tenor saxophonist raised in Baltimore, Maryland and residing in New York City. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were both professional musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California, and became a cult figure after his death in the little-known field of "song-poem" music. Organist Bobbie Lee performed in local nightclubs in Baltimore in the early 1960s and provided Eskelin an introduction to standards from the Great American Songbook as well as inspiring an early interest in jazz music.
Theodor Franz Jörgensmann is a German jazz clarinetist.
Dutch jazz refers to the jazz music of the Netherlands. The Dutch traditionally have a vibrant jazz scene as shown by the North Sea Jazz Festival as well as other venues.
Thomas Chapin was an American composer and saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. His music spanned the full range of 20th century creative music, from his time as Lionel Hampton's bandleader to modern jazz and his own avant-garde explorations. He helped create the Knitting Factory scene in New York City in the early 80's and was the first artist signed to Knitting Factory Records. Though primarily an alto saxophonist, he also played sopranino, as well as soprano, tenor, baritone saxes and flute. Many of his recordings as a leader were in a trio with bassist Mario Pavone and drummer Michael Sarin. Chapin studied with Jackie McLean, Paul Jeffrey, Kenny Barron, and Lionel Hampton. He died of leukemia at age 40. He played at a benefit concert two weeks before his death.
Jukka Santeri Tiensuu is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
Just Music were a German avant-garde music ensemble, an interchangeable collective of classically trained instrumentalists founded at the centrum freier cunst, Frankfurt/Main in 1967 by multi-instrumentalist Alfred Harth. An inherent anti-commercial bias kept them at arm's length from the mainstream music business, enabling them to experiment at will. Just Music changed their name several times depending on the context.
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1969.
Martin Schütz is a Swiss cellist in the fields of jazz and free improvisation. He is also a composer, film and theater musician.
Peter Schärli is a Swiss jazz trumpeter.
Guillermo Gregorio is an Argentine jazz and free improvisation clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer.
Werner Lüdi was a Swiss jazz musician and author.
Rick Countryman is a Free Improvisation jazz saxophonist.
Creative Works Records is an independent Swiss record label.