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Harry Pepl * 1945  † 2005

Press archive

What was written and broadcast about Harry Pepl: reviews, portraits, interviews and obituaries, with summary and source. The originals are protected by copyright and kept in the archive; we provide them to researchers and the press on request.

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  1. 16 March 1989 · Programme booklet · DE

    Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, programme booklet, Brahms-Saal (series „Freude an Musik“, concert 3): Ensemble Wien, Donnerstag, 16. März 1989, 18.30 Uhr

    editor: Teresa Reichenberger

    Programme booklet of the concert in which the Ensemble Wien plays Pepl’s “Ballade for Mr. Dinozo” for two violins, viola and double bass. The note on Pepl summarises critics’ comments and mentions his jazz trio with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen as well as the Jazzzwio in Montreux. Pepl is wrongly described there as a Tyrolean guitarist.

    one of the most innovative guitarists across the whole of Europe

  2. 9 December 1988 · Interview · DE

    Wochenpresse (no. 49): „Saitensprünge“

    Wolfgang Kralicek

    Two-page portrait with an interview around Pepl’s Austrian tour in December 1988. It describes how “Cracked Mirrors” came about in the Wachau studio, with the drums added afterwards in Oslo, the Montreux and ECM (the renowned European jazz label) period with Pirchner and DeJohnette, and Pepl’s work in his home studio in Hernstein. The albums of 1988 are named.

    I couldn’t care less that it’s called jazz.

    “Wurscht” (literally “sausage”) is Viennese for “it makes no difference”. Said in an interview during his Austrian tour in December 1988, about his music being labelled jazz

    Harry Pepl

    The Austrian musician Harry Pepl is a man in demand internationally.

    They were all thrilled. A sensation, really.

    On the Jazzzwio’s performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, in 1981, in an interview in 1988

    Harry Pepl

  3. 30 August 1988 · Report · DE

    APA-Basisdienst (Austria Presse Agentur), Rubrik APA JAZZ NEWS: „Schallplattenpreis für Harry Pepls ‚Cracked Mirrors‘“

    initials „hmf/fwi“

    Report: the ECM album “Cracked Mirrors” with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen received the German Record Critics’ Award (German award for outstanding recordings, chosen by a jury of critics) in the jazz category of the quarterly list. The last Austrian jazz musician honoured in this way before Pepl was Werner Pirchner for the double album “EU”.

    Great success for the guitarist Harry Pepl, a lot of attention for Austrian jazz.

  4. 24 October 1985 · Other · DE

    steirischer herbst, festival archive (online): „Jazzzwio Werner Pirchner / Harry Pepl & Gast“, Open Spoons Konzert

    Entry in the archive of the steirischer herbst festival on the performance of the Jazzzwio with a guest on Thursday, 24 October 1985, at the Katholisches Studentenhaus Münzgraben in Graz, Austria, in the “Open Spoons” series. Only Werner Pirchner and Harry Pepl are named; the guest remains unnamed.

  5. 23 October 1985 · Other · DE

    steirischer herbst, festival archive (online): „Martin Wiederhofer Trio / Jazzzwio Pirchner Pepl“, Mürztaler Werkstatt Jazz

    Entry in the archive of the steirischer herbst festival on the double concert on Wednesday, 23 October 1985, at the Gasthof Prettenthaler in Kindberg (Styria, Austria), in the “Mürztaler Werkstatt” series: Martin Wiederhofer Trio and Jazzzwio. It names Harry Pepl, Werner Pirchner, Robert Riegler, Walter Schmocker, Heimo Wiederhofer and Martin Wiederhofer, without assigning them to either group.

  6. 1985 · Portrait · DE

    Sterz, Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und Kulturpolitik (Graz), no. 32: „Der Riese aus dem Fuchsloch. Eine Anbiederung an Werner Pirchner, hingehudelt“

    Heimo Steps

    Portrait of Werner Pirchner by Heimo Steps, founder of gamsbART (Graz concert promoter), in the Graz magazine “Sterz”. Steps calls Harry Pepl Pirchner’s “musical alter ego”, quotes Le Monde (“a giant of improvisation”), praises the Jazzzwio’s Montreux record and “Air, Love & Vitamins”, and reports that Steve Swallow toured Europe with Pirchner and Pepl in the summer of 1984. He recalls a night after a concert at the Graz jazz club M 59 around 1977, when he philosophised with the two in the empty hall until dawn. Online on the website of the Edition Werner Pirchner.

    Harry Pepl: the giant from Hernstein in Lower Austria, “a giant of improvisation” (Le Monde), W.P.’s musical alter ego.

    The Pirchner-Pepl JazzZwio has long had a permanent place in the apocryphal pantheon of music.

    “Live in Montreux”, a hammer for heart and brain, if you let heart and brain be the anvil.

    Heimo Steps in 1985 in Sterz, a literary magazine from Graz, on the Jazzzwio album “Live in Montreux”; a play on hammer and anvil

  7. 1984 · Portrait · DE

    Jazzlive (österreichisches Jazzmagazin): „Harry Pepl (Gitarre)“, Porträt mit Titelbild

    Multi-page portrait with a cover (“Portrait: Harry Pepl”). It reports that Pepl had been voted the third-best Austrian jazz musician of the year the year before, with the same ranking among guitarists, behind Pat Metheny and James Blood Ulmer. It mentions a concert with Werner Pirchner, the Family of Percussion and Steve Swallow in Hamburg, Germany, a seminar by Peter Giger in Wengen, Switzerland, with Ronald Shannon Jackson, and a performance in Moers, Germany, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Wolfgang Reisinger and Mike Richmond. The performances mentioned, Moers in June 1984 and the jazz workshop of the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the public broadcaster for northern Germany) in Hamburg, date the issue to 1984; Nikolaus Kohler cites the collaboration with the Family of Percussion from Jazzlive no. 14, September 1984. It is one of two Jazzlive covers featuring Pepl; the second shows him with Air Mail (no. 20, April 1985).

    There is no doubt that Harry Pepl must today be counted among the leading jazz guitarists in Europe.

  8. 6 November 1981 · Other · DE

    Rockpalast-Archiv (private fan archive, online): „PIRCHNER-PEPL JAZZZWIO - Metropol Berlin 06.11.1981“

    The Rockpalast archive, a privately run fan archive on Rockpalast, the music programme of WDR television (West German Broadcasting), and not a WDR site, lists the Jazzzwio of Werner Pirchner (vibraphone, marimba) and Harry Pepl (guitar) at the Jazz Fest Berlin at the Metropol on Friday, 6 November 1981, with the set list of eight pieces and their durations, around 85 minutes in all: “Berlin '81 Die Erste”, “Gegenwind”, “Homesick”, “Der Tag An Dem Wir Erfuhren, Dass Paul Desmond Gestorben War”, “Drein Sein Beieinader Bleiben”, “Germ In A”, “Raga Nr. 3” and “White Smoke”. In the archive’s production list the evening appears among further Rockpalast recordings at the Metropol from 3 to 8 November 1981, including U2, John Scofield and James Blood Ulmer. The page does not say whether the recording was broadcast or survives.

  9. October 1981 · Other · DE

    Sounds (music magazine, Hamburg): „Jazz Fest 81 Berlin“ (Anzeige der Berliner Festspiele, Heft 10/1981, S. 64)

    In issue 10 (October 1981) of Sounds, the Hamburg music magazine (1966 to 1983, at first focused on free jazz), the Berliner Festspiele announce the Jazz Fest Berlin of 5 to 8 November 1981 in an advertisement on p. 64. For the Metropol they list “Pirchner-Pepl Jazzzwio/ Defunkt” on Friday, 6 November, at 11 pm; on the other evenings Volker Kriegel, the John Scofield Trio, Michael Gregory Jackson and James “Blood” Ulmer play there. It is an announcement, not a concert report.

  10. 30 April 1980 · Report · DE

    Burgenländische Freiheit (gedruckte p. 52, ANNO-p. 44): „Jazz aktuell“ bei Jeunesses Musicales

    Short report on the “Jazz aktuell” concert of the Musical Youth on 21 April 1980 in the assembly hall of the Pädagogische Akademie Eisenstadt. The quintet “5 Neighbours”, led by the pianist Dieter Glawischnig, was joined as soloists by Werner Pirchner on vibraphone and Harry Pepl on guitar.

    Vibraphone and Harry Pepl on guitar demonstrated convincingly