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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. 2001 · Review · DE

    Concerto (music magazine), issue 5/2001, p. 54: „Fünf Variationen österreichischer Jazzkunst“ (Austrian Jazzart)

    Jörg Weitlaner

    Joint review of the first five CDs of Universal Music’s Austrian Jazzart series (reissues of Austrian jazz albums). First comes “Light Blues” by Air Mail, the quartet’s second and last record, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Wolfgang Reisinger and Mike Richmond. Pepl describes the band’s “telepathic understanding”; the review quotes from the liner notes (by Andreas Felber according to Discogs) his playing “marked by rough, jagged cascades of notes” and highlights the then still young MIDI technology. For Wolfgang Puschnig’s “Pieces Of The Dream” (No. 5) Pepl is named among the duo partners.

    playing marked by rough, jagged cascades of notes

    Andreas Felber

    The interplay of the whole band, in which we had developed a telepathic understanding, was what made Airmail special for me.

    Looking back in 2001 on his quartet Air Mail

    Harry Pepl

  2. 10 December 1997 · Review · DE

    Oberösterreichisches Volksblatt (p. 28): „World Groove Music mitten im Innviertel“

    Harald Liehmann

    Report from the INNtöne weekend: on the first evening Pepl plays first piano, then drums with the trumpeter Franz Hackl; on the second evening he joins the session of Michel Portal and Stephen Kent with Wolfgang Reisinger and Steve Shehan on piano and guitar.

    After that Harry Pepl played, first on piano, then on drums, while Franz Hackl stayed with his trumpet.

    Their joy in playing carried over seamlessly to the audience.

  3. July 1986 · Review · FR

    Jazz Hot, no. 432: „Amiens : le temps du jazz“

    Franck Bergerot

    Festival report by Franck Bergerot in the July/August issue of Jazz Hot, the French jazz magazine founded in 1935, on the “Le temps du jazz” festival in Amiens (France) from 13 to 24 May 1986, at which the festival also launched its record label, Label Bleu. Under the heading “Coup de chaleur” (roughly: a heatwave) he describes Air Mail's concert: fired up by Wolfgang Puschnig, driven by Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger, shaken up by an utterly unexpected Harry Pepl. To Bergerot it sounded as if Pepl wanted to pay tribute to the guitarist Joseph Dejean, who had died ten years earlier; in his playing he found again the thread of a history of the guitar that he had thought lost. The music was free, fresh, uninhibited and full of energy, and he had not enjoyed himself so much in a long time. The report gives no date for the concert. Thirty-five years later Bergerot paid tribute to Pepl again in Jazz Magazine, as “the late Austrian jazz guitarist”.

    Air Mail, fired up by Wolfgang Puschnig, driven by the rhythm section of Mike Richmond / Wolfgang Reisinger and shaken up by an utterly unexpected Harry Pepl.

    Franck Bergerot in Jazz Hot on Air Mail's concert at the “Le temps du jazz” festival in Amiens, France, in May 1986, under the heading “Coup de chaleur” (roughly: a heatwave)

    There I found again the thread of a history of the guitar that I feared I had lost for good.

    Franck Bergerot on Pepl's guitar playing at Air Mail's concert in Amiens, France, in May 1986; just before, he writes that had Pepl wanted to pay tribute to the guitarist Joseph Dejean, who had died ten years earlier, he could not have gone about it any differently

  4. July 1986 · Review · FR

    Jazz Hot, no. 432: „Du jazz sous les pommiers“

    Alain Guerrini

    Festival report by Alain Guerrini in the July/August issue of Jazz Hot, the French jazz magazine founded in 1935, on the 5th Jazz sous les pommiers in Coutances (Normandy, France) from 3 to 10 May 1986. On the closing night, at the theatre, Guerrini discovered Air Mail with Wolfgang Puschnig, Harry Pepl, Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger as “un groupe prodigieux”, a prodigious group: from the Berlin ballad to hard rock, their music brought almost a century of music history back to life. As the most telling piece he names “Halley Comet”, probably Pepl's “The Halley's Comet Light Blue Blues”. The Eddy Louiss Big Band closed the evening. Jazz Hot names Puschnig as the band's leader; according to Daniel Pepl, Air Mail had no leader, and the statement is an error in the report. Guerrini gives 10 p.m. as the starting time, the festival archive 9 p.m.

    There I discovered a prodigious group: Air Mail

    Alain Guerrini in Jazz Hot on the closing night of the Jazz sous les pommiers festival in Coutances, France, on Saturday, 10 May 1986, according to the festival programme, Air Mail's first concert in France

    “Halley Comet” is the most telling piece of this cosmic quartet.

    Alain Guerrini on Air Mail's concert in Coutances, France, in May 1986; “Halley Comet” is probably Pepl's “The Halley's Comet Light Blue Blues”, later the title track of Air Mail's album “Light Blues” (1988)