Irène Schweizer

Irène Schweizer ( born June 2, 1941 in Schaffhausen ) is a Swiss pianist and drummer, one of the founders of European free jazz. In their independent, consistently developed since the early sixties work is about " a free improvising style of play, the sounds, percussive elements, fast, partly with the poor ailing cluster and more conventional piano techniques interconnects ". It is regarded as "Europe's most experienced jazz pianist ".

Life and work

Swiss learned as a child, hand organ, then looked at the age of twelve years, self-taught piano and drums before they took lessons from a private teacher. At fourteen years old, she played as a drummer in a Dixieland band. After attending a trade school, she earned her living as a secretary. In 1958, she turned to the modern jazz and joined to 1961 each year with the Modern Jazz Preachers at the amateur festival in Zurich in 1960 as the winner. Encounters with Abdullah Ibrahim and the Blue Notes by Chris McGregor ( in the legendary Jazz Café Africana in Zurich ) and with Cecil Taylor ( 1966) led them to free jazz. In particular, with her ​​trio, the drummer Mani Neumeier since 1963 and bassist Uli Trepte (both later with Guru Guru ), then since 1968 the drummer Pierre Favre and bassist Peter Kowald belonged, she played at many festivals. After a period of searching, in which it, inter alia, the trio appeared with Buschi Niebergall and Allen Blairman, she worked from 1973 with saxophonist Rüdiger Carl together, some again added to a trio with drummer Louis Moholo the South African. Since 1976, where they celebrated a spectacular success at the Jazz Festival Willisau, it also gives solo concerts.

Swiss loves the one hand, a completely free improvisation, on the other hand can be found in their music also appeals to more traditional forms and compositions of classics like Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington on the one hand, to the South African music on the other. In addition to her musical activities, she was active as early feminist. Therefore, she was active around 1980 in the Feminist Improvising Group; the trio Les Diaboliques with Joëlle Léandre and Maggie Nicols reflects this today. In the 1990s, she worked with Marilyn Crispell, the London Jazz Composers ' Orchestra and Co Streiff, then also in a trio with Makaya Ntshoko and Omri Ziegele. She is also in the Swiss jazz scene important as the organizer. So it is much involved in the development of Taktlos Festival ( Zurich ) and the label Intakt Records.

Swiss lives in Zurich Aussersihl and has come up at the 2007 National Council elections stand as a candidate for the alternative list.

Prizes and awards

Swiss In 1990, the Culture Prize of the city of Schaffhausen and the 1991 Art Prize of the City of Zurich. The Swiss director Gitta Gsell documented the life of the jazz musician in a full-length film. 2013, it was awarded the " Nightingale 2013," the Special Prize of the German Record Critics. In the award is " artistic and personal integrity, her friendly nature, their creative restlessness, their organizational skills, their versatility and their presence in a variety of compounds and, of course, its development as a pianist above all " praised; this " made ​​her one of the most exciting figures in jazz ."

Works

An overview of Irène Schweizer's work is the CD

• Irène Schweizer Portrait intact CD 105/2005