Karl Berger
Karlhanns " Karl" Berger ( born March 30, 1935 in Heidelberg ) is a German jazz vibraphonist and pianist. He was from 1994 to 2003 professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main. Then he headed until 2005, the Music Department of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth ( Massachusetts). His company founded in 1973 by Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, he promoted the discussion of jazz music with international cultures and influenced by the style of play of many U.S. jazz musicians.
Life
Berger had 1948-1954 music lessons at the Heidelberg Conservatory. He studied musicology and sociology at the Free University of Berlin. In 1963 he was awarded his doctorate on the determination of functions of music in the Soviet ideology. Already during his studies Berger worked as a jazz pianist and since 1960 also as a vibraphonist. He has played in Cave 54 in Heidelberg and Paris Club Le Chat Qui Pêche, accompanied Steve Lacy, Eric Dolphy and was in Paris in 1964 a member of the group of Don Cherry, in which at that time also played Gato Barbieri. He was commissioned in 1966 with Cherry to New York, where he played with Roswell Rudd, Marion Brown, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, Lee Konitz and others. He was also involved in recordings of Don Cherry, John McLaughlin, Hozan Yamamoto, Dave Holland and on the recording of Charles Mingus Epitaph great composition with Gunther Schuller. In recent years, he has inter alia CDs recorded with Vitold Rek, John Lindberg, Annemarie Roelofs, Theo Jörgensmann, Petras Vysniauskas, Pete Namlook and the group Südpool.
In 1968 he founded with Cherry the New York Total Music Company, and in 1971 with Ornette Coleman, the Creative Music Foundation. In 1973 he set up with his wife Ingrid Sertso in Woodstock the Creative Music Studio A, taught at the John Cage, among others, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Richard Teitelbaum and George Russell and her students formed large orchestra. Berger dealt extensively with world music very early, thereby flowing diverse music cultures into his match practice and in his teaching. For example, it has developed its own rhythm training. 2008 began Berger and Sertso to publish recordings of workshops and concerts of the CMS.
In particular, on the vibraphone is a great virtuoso Berger, the building abstract and differentiated swinging and improvising very strongly at a reduction to the essentials on gamelan phrases. He has been involved as an arranger and conductor at several of their productions by Bill Laswell, but also in productions of Jeff Buckley ( Grace), Natalie Merchant ( Ophelia ), Better Than Ezra, Sly & Robbie, Angelique Kidjo and others. In 2011 he worked with on the album "Through a Crooked Sun" by Rich Robinson. Here he played piano and Metalophones.
He is married to the singer Ingrid Sertso, with whom he also performs regularly in duo and quartet. As Albert Mangelsdorff, Gunter Hampel or Peter Brötzmann he is one of the leading figures of the first generation of West German free jazz.
Awards
Berger won six times as Vibraphone soloist the annual critics' poll of Down Beat jazz magazine.
Publications
- Karl Berger: Sketches world of musical experiences. In: Wolfram Knauer (ed.), Encounters. The World Meets Jazz. Darmstadt contributions to Jazz Research, Vol 10, Wolke Verlag, Hofheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-936000-04-7, pp. 255-274.
- Karlhanns Berger: The function determining the music in the Soviet ideology. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1963, 128 pp.; Series: Philosophical and sociological publications; at the same time dissertation at the Free University Berlin in 1963.