Karel Krautgartner

Karel Krautgartner ( born July 20, 1922 in Mikulov, German Mikulov, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, † September 20, 1982 in Cologne) was a Czech jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and bandleader, who had a formative influence on the Czech jazz.

Life

Karel Krautgartner, whose father was a postal worker, began playing the piano at age eight. After the family moved to Brno he became interested in jazz he heard on the radio. He took private lessons in clarinet and founded in 1936 a student band. In 1938 he became a professional musician, playing saxophone in the orchestra from 1942 to 1943 by Gustav Brom shopping at the hotel in Brno. After that, he still founded during the time of the German occupation, the " Dixie Club" orchestra for which he arranged in the style of swing music of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. In 1945, he joined with many members of the orchestra to Prague, where they were part of the orchestra of Karel Vlach. In this orchestra he remained until 1955 as head of the saxophone section. In addition, he composed and arranged for the orchestra. In 1956 he founded, together with Karel Velebný the " Karel Krautgartner quintet ", which accompanied Karel Gott, swing and Dixieland jazz and played his headquarters in Prague's Vltava River Cafe ( Revolucni street ) had. Since he refused to cooperate with the secret service, he and his orchestra were placed when traveling abroad obstacles in the way. When it was him at the last moment at the Prague airport departure denied, he dissolved the band. 1958 to 1961 he played at the same time in the style of West Coast jazz with his "All Star Band" and traditional jazz with his " Studio 5 " band, with whom in 1959 at the 7th World Youth Festival in Vienna won the 1st prize for small bands. 1960 to 1968 he was head of Tanzorchestes of the Czechoslovak Radio, the traded under the name Jazz Orchestra in 1963 and in 1967 renamed " Karel Krautgartner orchestra". Model was here Stan Kenton. With the orchestra he joined in 1964 at the jazz festival in Munich and in 1964 and 1965 in the Prague. In 1968 he made ​​recordings with the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen in Cologne. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was Krautgartner, who was also politically active in the Prague Spring, with the family into exile. In Vienna, he led the subsequent ORF Big Band, while his friend Paul Polansky music chief of Ö3 was. In the 1970s he went to Cologne, where, in 1971 at the Rheinische music school seminar for light music founded, doctorate and as a professor of music high school prepared the establishment of the jazz program. In Czechoslovakia, efforts were made along the way, to remove all traces of his work, the recordings in broadcast archives have been deleted.