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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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.
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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
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24 July 2002 · Portrait · DE
Falter (p. 55, culture): „Leiwand oder ned leiwand“ (Doppelporträt Muthspiel & Muthspiel und Jazzzwio)
Klaus Taschwer
Double portrait ahead of the premiere of the programme “Muthspiel & Muthspiel play Pepl/Pirchner” at the Glatt & Verkehrt festival. Wolfgang Muthspiel, who studied guitar with Pepl in Graz, remembers lessons “like an extended concert” and Pepl’s laconic verdict, either “leiwand” (Viennese for great) or “net leiwand”; for Christian Muthspiel the Jazzzwio came “like a liberation”.
Pepl was one of the most interesting guitarists in jazz. Great musicians like Dave Liebman or Jack DeJohnette say so too.
The guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, once Pepl’s student in Graz; the title of the Falter article, “Leiwand oder ned leiwand”, is Viennese for “great or not great”
Wolfgang Muthspiel
The lessons with him at the conservatory were like an extended concert.
Wolfgang Muthspiel
Pepl and Pirchner showed us that you can make exactly the music you want to make.
The trombonist and composer Christian Muthspiel on the Jazzzwio as a model for his generation; the title of the Falter article, “Leiwand oder ned leiwand”, is Viennese for “great or not great”
Christian Muthspiel
listening again now, I noticed once more how magnificently Pepl and Pirchner played. That was improvisation in the best sense.
Wolfgang Muthspiel
He played something to me, I had to play along, and every few bars he commented on how it was going. In his words that was, laconically, either ‘leiwand’ or ‘net leiwand’ [Viennese for ‘great’ or ‘not great’].
Wolfgang Muthspiel
The time I studied with Pepl was very formative. The lessons with him at the conservatory were like an extended concert.
Wolfgang Muthspiel
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26 November 2008 · Portrait · DE
Falter (p. 55, Styria): „Wenn Augen hören“ (Christian Muthspiel im Gespräch)
Portrait of Christian Muthspiel ahead of two conducting engagements in Graz. He calls some of his Graz teachers personal heroes, among them Pepl, Adelhard Roidinger and Ewald Oberleitner; his trio, founded in 2005, released “Against the Wind”, the tribute to Pepl and Pirchner, in 2007.
Yet some of his teachers in Graz are personal heroes to him: Harry Pepl, for example
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February 2009 · Portrait · DE
Concerto (2/2009, p. 44): „Jazzzwio – ein markanter Name – bis heute“ (CD/DVD-Tipp „Live in Concerts“)
Thomas Hein
Report on the reissue of the Montreux recording together with the video, the preparation of which ran between summer 2007 and autumn 2008. Daniel Pepl describes the home studio in the cellar in Hernstein, the rescue of the tapes and the plan to make his father’s complete work accessible.
While I try to be innovative within a framework, within a style, Harry always tried to cross the set boundaries and then go further.
Daniel Pepl
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1 October 2017 · Portrait · DE
Kleine Zeitung: „Akustischer Maßanzug für Ö 1“
Michael Tschida
Portrait of Christian Muthspiel, who created the new Ö1 station signations, replacing Werner Pirchner's miniatures. Among his sure-footed border crossings the Kleine Zeitung counts the trio arrangements of pieces by the mavericks he admires, Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner; the same text appeared on kleinezeitung.at.
trio arrangements of pieces by the mavericks he admires, Harry Pepl & Werner Pirchner
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10 September 2018 · Portrait · DE
wienerzeitung.at: „Begnadeter Harry Pepl“
Short portrait for his birthday on 10 September: musical influences in the family (opera, Count Basie, Schrammel music), first engagements with Harald Neuwirth and Erich Kleinschuster's sextet, the ORF Big Band, fame through the Pirchner-Pepl JazzZwio, performances with Benny Goodman, Dave Holland, Wolfgang Puschnig and Dino Saluzzi and at festivals in Montreux, Berlin and Saalfelden. As students the text names Wolfgang Muthspiel, Peter Havlicek and Guido Jeszenszky.
a gifted guitarist and an exceptional phenomenon
Otto Kolleritsch
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20 March 2019 · Portrait · DE
Der Standard: „Miniopern zwischen Schwermut und Freiheit“
Ljubiša Tošić
Portrait of the singer and composer Elfi Aichinger on her album “Core”: besides New York greats, local musicians such as Fritz Pauer, Uli Scherer, Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner helped her break out of classical music. Online as early as 19 March 2019.
Local greats such as Fritz Pauer, Uli Scherer, Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner also helped her break out.
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5 February 2024 · Portrait
European Jazz Masters Of The Past (Blog): „European Jazz Masters Of The Past #2: Harry Pepl“
Wulf Müller
Detailed biographical essay by the former producer at PolyGram Austria and co-founder of “Jazz Live”, with photographs from the family collection. Müller first met Pepl in 1984 at an Air Mail concert in Vienna. He describes the Jazzzwio and the time with Benny Goodman, the making of the “Schönberg Improvations”, whose idea Pepl brought to his office, and the solo piano record “Flow” from 1996, recorded without corrections. Some biographical details, such as his birth and the start of his teaching in Graz, differ from the documented sources.
a very humble, charismatic and private person with a great sense of humour. Someone who was constantly looking for new ideas
While Harry was building his reputation as one of Europe’s most interesting and unique guitarists
He swings like hell
Harry Pepl on Benny Goodman
Musically, I still find this album exciting, challenging and powerful.
Harry sat down at the piano, which he never really learned to play, nor practised, and plays, let’s the music flow through him.
After a few moments I don’t feel time anymore. An emotion of happiness floats through me and the sounds stream on their own
Harry Pepl
the most spectacular record of one of the most original guitar players of European Jazz in those years
Andreas Felber