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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18 December 2019 · Review · IT
Tracce di Jazz (Blog): „Ritornare a ….”Volver”“
andbar
Album review on the Italian jazz blog Tracce di Jazz (“From jazz-fans to jazz-fans”). The author, andbar, came across a second-hand copy of “Volver”, the album recorded in 1986 by the Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and the Argentine bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi for the renowned European jazz label ECM, with Harry Pepl (guitar), Furio Di Castri (double bass) and Bruce Ditmas (drums). He finds the record somewhat underrated and worth rediscovering. For him the opening track, “Le but du souffle”, begins with a quiet soliloquy on electric guitar; he calls “Tempos de ausencias” a distillation of Argentine melody only lightly flecked by Pepl’s guitar. In Pepl’s composition “Ballantine for Valentine” he hears a free outburst in the spirit of Ornette Coleman, the pioneer of free jazz, which breaks up the calm prevailing mood of the record and widens its horizons. On Sunday, 22 December 2019 a second author on the blog replied with Rava’s own recollection of the recording session.
“Tempos de ausencias”, a distillation of Argentine melody only lightly flecked by Pepl’s guitar
andbar on the Italian jazz blog Tracce di Jazz about “Tempos de ausencias” on “Volver”, the ECM album recorded in 1986 by Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi with Pepl on guitar
“Ballantine for Valentine”, an Ornette-style free outburst that breaks up the calm moods prevailing on the record
andbar on Pepl’s composition “Ballantine for Valentine”, his only piece on “Volver”; “ornettiano” alludes to Ornette Coleman, the pioneer of free jazz
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15 November 2018 · Review · DE
Kleine Zeitung: „Auratisch: Zwei fünfte Männer“
Otmar Klammer
Concert review of Harry Pepl (tape) & The (Lonely) Single Swinger Band at the Austrian Soundcheck festival at Tube's in Graz, Austria (Tuesday, 13 November 2018). Clemens Salesny calls the band a quintet because Markus Wallner steers the playback from the mixing desk and laptop; the real fifth man, however, is Pepl, who “in a few days will already have been sorely missed for 13 years”. Salesny, Andi Schreiber (violin), Martin Bayer (guitar) and Valentin Duit (drums) take up Pepl's style; the band is at its strongest in the pieces built on Pepl's grooving ostinato bass figures.
The real fifth man, who once composed this music in real time on countless instruments
Otherwise the rule was: the smaller the format, the more Pepl.
The real fifth man, who once composed this music in real time on countless instruments, will in a few days already have been sorely missed for 13 years.
A multifaceted excursion through the Pepl cosmos.
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18 December 2017 · Review
Guitar Moderne (Online): „Harry Pepl: The One That Almost Got Away“
guitar moderne
Short piece in the American online magazine for adventurous guitarists. The author discovered Pepl in 1986 on the ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album “Volver” by Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi: his sound recalled Metheny, but with a harder attack and a freer sensibility. He recommends “Cracked Mirrors”, which still sounds fresh today.
His chorused sound and fluidity were reminiscent of Metheny, but his attack was harder and his sensibility was decidedly more “out.”
Check out “Cracked Mirror” to hear how his playing in 1988 sounds fresh even today.
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25 November 2017 · Review · JA
ジャズCDの個人ページ ECM Blog (kudoecm.blog.jp): „Cracked Mirrors/Harry Pepl(G, G Synth, P)/Herbert Joos(Flh)/Jon Christensen(Ds)(ECM 1356)“
kudojazz
Review on the Japanese blog “ジャズCDの個人ページ ECM Blog” (roughly “Personal jazz CD page, ECM blog”), on which the author kudojazz discusses the records of the renowned European jazz label ECM by catalogue number. He lists the recording of February 1987 with Harry Pepl (guitar, guitar synthesizer, piano), the German flugelhorn player Herbert Joos and the Norwegian drummer Jon Christensen, and notes that six of the eight pieces are by Pepl and two (“Wolkenbilder 1” and “Wolkenbilder 2”) by Joos. In his view the album combines passages that sound like free improvisation with pastoral ones, and depending on the piece the Roland MIDI guitar system creates a synthesizer-like expanse. On Pepl’s pieces he notes distinctly free traits with fine riffs and broad synthesizer textures in “Reflections in a Cracked Mirror”, a small ballad with a gentle flugelhorn melody in “Schikaneder Delight”, plenty of space and freedom in “Die alte Mär und das Mann”, very fast, mechanical free playing in “More Far Out Than East”, a melody floating above the jagged guitar in “Purple Light” and a calm, piano-led melody in “Tintenfisch Inki”.
There are passages that sound like free improvisation and passages that are pastoral.
kudojazz on his Japanese blog about ECM records, on “Cracked Mirrors” (ECM 1356, recorded in February 1987) with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen
Depending on the piece, the Roland MIDI guitar system creates a synthesizer-like expanse.
kudojazz on the sound of Pepl’s Roland MIDI guitar system on “Cracked Mirrors” (ECM 1356, 1987)
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19 May 2016 · Review · DE
Jazzpages (Online): „INNtöne 2016 – Rückschau mit Bildern“
Frank Schindelbeck
Festival report with photos from the INNtöne Jazzfestival 2016 on Paul Zauner's farm in Diersbach. As the highlight of the second festival day, the author describes the project of Agnes Heginger, Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer and Peter Primus Frosch, in which recordings from Pepl's home studio were played in and the band entered into a dialogue with them. He refers to the double CD on Fullmax Recordings.
The four musicians on stage played so excellently with Pepl's legacy that, without knowing the story behind it and with your eyes closed, there could have been a quintet on stage.
An extremely successful tribute to one of Austria's important jazz musicians.
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17 May 2016 · Review · DE
Der Standard (Online): „Inntöne: Expressive Gelassenheit“ (Al Foster und das Harry-Pepl-Projekt)
Ljubiša Tošić
Festival report from the INNtöne in Diersbach (Upper Austria, Austria) at Whitsun 2016. After the Al Foster Quartet, Ljubiša Tošić describes a quintet with a special feature: alongside Clemens Salesny, Agnes Heginger, Martin Bayer and Peter Primus Frosch, Harry Pepl was there too, from tape, his ideas recorded in his home studio forming the foundation of a high-energy mix; Tošić calls the evening an impulsive homage to one of the greats of European jazz. Printed in the edition of 18 May 2016, p. 30.
Al Foster and the Harry Pepl project
The late grandmaster of impulsive improvisation
An impulsive homage to one of the greats of European jazz.
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2016 · Review · DE
Jazzpodium: „Harry Pepl & Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Peter Primus Frosch, Agnes Heginger, Fullmax15-01 CD“
Alexander Schmitz
Review of the 2015 double CD in the German jazz magazine Jazzpodium, probably 2016. Schmitz recalls Le Monde's “giant of improvisation”, Scofield's “machine gun”, the Jazzzwio, Air Mail and the MIDI guitar that first made Real Time Composing possible. He describes twelve previously unreleased soliloquies from the Lonely Single Swinger Band and 13 Pepl compositions in a new guise with Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Peter Primus Frosch and Agnes Heginger, with Herbert Joos, Alex Meissl and Clemens Wenger as guests.
which now brings the name of the great Viennese guitarist Harry Pepl back into public awareness with a project of equal stature
There is nothing at all to say that could even come close to capturing this late, magnificent Pepl spectacle.
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20 December 2015 · Review · DE
Kurier (Diskothek, CDs der Woche): „Salesny, Bayer, Frosch und Heginger: Harry Pepl“
Werner Rosenberger
CD of the week with five stars: young Austrian musicians remember Harry Pepl on the tenth anniversary of his death; the double CD brings partly familiar and partly unreleased material by “Harry Pepl's Lonely Single Swinger Band”, recorded between 1996 and 2005.
The Viennese guitarist and musical border-crosser was in a class of his own
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13 November 2012 · Review
ECM Reviews (Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond): „A second look: Pirchner/Pepl/DeJohnette (ECM 1237)“
Tyran Grillo
Reassessment of the 1983 ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album, almost a year after his own critical review of 20 December 2011. After readers objected, Grillo writes, he kept returning to the album and had not initially given it the attention it needed. He now highlights the depth of Pepl's talent, the interplay between Pepl and Pirchner as the core of the trio and Pepl's solos, and calls the record “this curious little gem”; only on the processing of the Ovation guitar does he stand by his first opinion.
I simply did not give this date the attention it deserves.
The depth of Pepl’s talent, now that I’m more familiar with it, is immediately evident in the spaciousness of his evocations.
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16 January 2012 · Review
ECM Reviews (Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond): „Pepl/Joos/Christensen: Cracked Mirrors (ECM 1356)“
Tyran Grillo
Review of the 1988 ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album with Harry Pepl (guitar, Roland MIDI guitar system, piano), Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen. The reviewer calls the album a far better showcase for Pepl’s innovative playing than the ECM record with Pirchner and DeJohnette and highlights Joos’s “Wolkenbilder”, the MIDI passages and Pepl’s piano on the closing piece. The page shows 18 July 2021 as the date of the update. Here Grillo himself calls his first impression of the album with Pirchner and DeJohnette “faulty impressions”.
a far better showcase for Pepl’s innovative talents
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2012 · Review
AllMusic (US-Musikdatenbank mit Kritiken, gegründet 1991): AllMusic Review: „Volver“
Scott Yanow
Capsule review in AllMusic, the US music database with reviews founded in 1991, of the ECM album “Volver” by the quintet of Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi, recorded in October 1986 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany, with Harry Pepl on guitar, Furio Di Castri on bass and Bruce Ditmas on drums. The US jazz critic Scott Yanow finds that Rava’s introverted yet inwardly passionate playing matches Saluzzi’s modern tangos well; the result is fairly accessible yet still exploratory, “An intriguing set”. AllMusic gives it 3 out of 5 stars. The review is undated and has been online since 2012 at the latest; the track list gives Pepl’s “Ballantine for Valentine” as track 5.
Rava’s introverted yet inwardly passionate playing matches well with Saluzzi’s modern tangos, and the results are fairly accessible yet still exploratory.
On the ECM album “Volver” (recorded in 1986) by the quintet of Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi, on which Harry Pepl plays guitar and is represented by his piece “Ballantine for Valentine”
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20 December 2011 · Review
ECM Reviews (Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond): „Pirchner/Pepl/DeJohnette: s/t (ECM 1237)“
Tyran Grillo
Mixed review of the 1983 ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album, recorded in June 1982 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, with Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl and Jack DeJohnette. The chorus effect of the Ovation guitar and the lack of rapport among the three musicians are criticised; Pepl’s solos and the closing piece “Better Times In Sight” are regarded as strengths. The page shows 10 February 2015 as the date of the update. Almost a year later, on 13 November 2012, Grillo revised his verdict in “A second look”.
When soloing, however, it sounds fantastic
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8 July 2010 · Review
ECM Reviews (Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond): „Adelhard Roidinger: Schattseite (ECM 1221)“
Tyran Grillo
Review of Adelhard Roidinger's only ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album, recorded in November 1981 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, with Heinz Sauer, Bob Degen, Harry Pepl, Werner Pirchner, Aina Kemanis and Michael DiPasqua. Grillo praises the airy, atmospheric sound, Pepl's soft guitar licks in the opening track and the Metheny-like picking in “Loveland”, and calls urgently for a reissue.
The fantastic sax solo and Metheny-esque picking lend even more elegance to the track’s progressive sound.