Press archive

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.

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

It traces his path from the Austrian Aces through commercial bands, the Fledermaus bar and the ORF Big Band (ORF: Austria's public broadcaster) to the professorship, and mentions recordings with DeJohnette, Holland, Saluzzi and Portal. Remarks by Scofield and Abercrombie about Pepl are also on record.

The guitar professor in Graz is regarded internationally as one of the best in his field.

He's great, he's like a machine gun

The American jazz guitarist John Abercrombie (ECM) on Pepl’s blistering speed, meant as praise; reported in the Kleine Zeitung, a daily from Graz, in 1988

John Abercrombie

Giant of improvisation

Le Monde

internationally sought-after master of improvisation

Among other things, it tells of the time with DeJohnette in Paris, the film music with Benny Goodman and planned projects in Graz.

His musical paintings are a pleasure to listen to, not least because sensuality and warmth are inherent in them.

He is one of my favourites

Having grown up with the accordion, he does not deny our own musical tradition and lets it flow into his music.

The great stylistic diversity and his unmistakably idiosyncratic playing, not to mention his perfect command of the instrument, make even the most prominent fellow musicians rave.

It presents Pepl as a professor in Graz and a composer in demand: a piece for the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet is about to be premiered in Graz in the autumn of 1991, another for the Artis Quartet is planned. For two years he has been composing with his “instant” or “real-time composing”. Pepl admires Mozart, Schoenberg's piano works and Giacinto Scelsi, and has analysed the rhythmic precision of a Bach recording by Glenn Gould on his computer. The text also mentions his two years at Gerhard Bronner's “Fledermaus” bar, the ORF Big Band (ORF: Austria's public broadcaster), several wins in the Jazz Live readers' poll and Le Monde calling him a “giant of improvisation”.

It is hard to place Harry Pepl anywhere musically, and strictly speaking it is not even necessary.

Pepl, and he leaves no doubt about this in this conversation either, is a musician of the moment.

the leading French newspaper Le Monde crowned him, without further ado, a “giant of improvisation”

Versatility is as much a part of Pepl as his turn to different (compositional) techniques.

In doing so, while playing the instrument, I record what is present in my consciousness during the creative process.

In 1994, on his Real-time Composing, in a portrait in the Kronen Zeitung, Austria’s largest-circulation daily

Harry Pepl

He remains a crosser of borders, this Harry Pepl.

only influenced by the New York street noises, by the loud life in this gigantic city.

On how his album “N.Y.C. Impressure” came about, 1994

Harry Pepl

According to the article, Siewert was taught by Harry Pepl at the jazz department of the Graz music academy (today the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz) from 1992 to 1997.

from 1992 to 1997 he was taught by Harry Pepl in the jazz department of the Graz University of Music

No idea what would have become of me if I hadn’t met Harry.

Martin Siewert

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

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

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

Besides Part Of Art, he names Air Mail with Wolfgang Puschnig, Mike Richmond and Harry Pepl as the second important band of his own during his time in the Vienna Art Orchestra. Pepl, he says, was the first of the great musicians from whom he could learn a lot, “a real genius”. He recounts how John Scofield called out “I’ll kill you!” to Pepl as they changed over on stage, and mentions tapes of a live performance that are almost better than the two studio albums.

Time and again I have had the good fortune to meet great musicians from whom you could really learn a lot, and the first of them was definitely Harry Pepl. He was a real genius and a great guitarist, with an energy and seriousness that showed you where things could go.

Wolfgang Reisinger

I still remember well how we once came off the stage, John Scofield went on, and in passing he said to Harry, ‘I’ll kill you!’. Those are the little experiences you don’t forget. That really was a totally hot band back then.

Wolfgang Reisinger

he was just about the only fantastic thing about Graz

Martin Siewert

The award of 4,000 euros from gamsbART (Graz concert promoter) launches Heckel's doctoral thesis on Pepl's work; at the end Daniel Riegler and Matthias Muche play a “Tribute to Harry Pepl”.

For it is to be devoted entirely to the oeuvre of the jazz guitarist and composer Harry Pepl, who passed away suddenly five years ago.

Between jazz, ethnic and Alpine music, musical freedom is always at the centre of the creative process for Heckel, as it was for Pepl.

Legendary, too, his collaboration with the singer Linda Sharrock or his projects with Harry Pepl (“Air Mail”).

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

a gifted guitarist and an exceptional phenomenon

Otto Kolleritsch

Local greats such as Fritz Pauer, Uli Scherer, Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner also helped her break out.

He is one of the great three of the older generation. I admire his openness in music, the mix of the concrete and the non-concrete, and the blur that is exciting in any art.

Paul Zauner

Thanks to collaborations with the Viennese ensemble Studio Dan and with musicians such as Harry Pepl or Wolfgang Puschnig, Lewis has a long connection with Austria. The online version appeared on kurier.at on 21 January 2023.

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

Kirchmair studied jazz guitar with Harry Pepl at the Kunstuniversität Graz; MeinBezirk Tirol and the Rundschau reported on the evening on 4 December 2024 and also name Pepl as his teacher.

studied jazz guitar at the University of the Arts in Graz with the legendary Harry Pepl