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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. 9 November 2021 · Review · FR

    Jazz Magazine (online): „Nevers assis le matin, debout le soir“

    Franck Bergerot

    Festival report by Franck Bergerot in Jazz Magazine, the French jazz magazine, from the D'Jazz Nevers festival (Burgundy, France). The duo of Franck Tortiller (vibraphone) and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel (guitar) played its programme “Les heures propices”, songs by the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, at noon on a Monday, probably on 8 November 2021. It included a piece by Harry Pepl, whom Bergerot honours as “the late Austrian jazz guitarist” who knew that melodic freshness and harmonic candour.

    a borrowing from the late Austrian jazz guitarist Harry Pepl (who knew that melodic freshness, that harmonic candour and its disarming anachronisms)

    The French jazz critic Franck Bergerot on a piece by Pepl in “Les heures propices”, the programme of the duo Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel (songs by the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s), at the D'Jazz Nevers festival in Nevers, France, in 2021

  2. 4 October 2021 · Review · FR

    Citizen Jazz: „Les Arches en jazz, une première“

    Marie Boisnel

    Report by Marie Boisnel in Citizen Jazz (French jazz magazine) on the first “Les Arches en Jazz” festival in Port-Bail-sur-Mer (Cotentin, Normandy, France). At the midday concert in the church of Notre-Dame, the duo Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald Michel played “Air, Love and Vitamins”, Pepl’s “gentle ballad” written for the same duo of guitar and vibraphone with Werner Pirchner.

    Then the gentle ballad by the Austrian guitarist and composer Harry Pepl, written for the same duo with Werner Pirchner, guitar and vibraphone, “Air, love and vitamins”, plunges us into a languorous meditation.

  3. 3 October 2021 · Review · FR

    CultureJazz: „13 arches... en jazz, ça porte bonheur ?“

    Thierry Giard

    Festival report by Thierry Giard (photos Christian Ducasse) in CultureJazz (French jazz magazine) on “Les Arches en Jazz” 2021. At the concert by Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel on Saturday, 25 September 2021, at noon in the church of Notre-Dame in Port-Bail-sur-Mer, the programme included compositions by Harry Pepl, Jim Pepper, David Crosby and Thelonious Monk alongside their own pieces. Giard had already heard the duo on 31 July 2021 in Rambaud (Hautes-Alpes).

    On the menu that lunchtime were original compositions but also pieces by the Austrian guitarist Harry Pepl, the Native American saxophonist Jim Pepper, David Crosby and Thelonious Monk.

  4. 2 August 2021 · Review · FR

    Le Dauphiné Libéré (im Tätigkeitsbericht 2021 des Festival de Chaillol): „Festival de Chaillol: le duo Tortiller et Fitzgerald-Michel très applaudi“

    Report by Le Dauphiné Libéré (regional newspaper of the French Alps) on the concert of the duo Franck Tortiller (vibraphone) and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel (guitar) at the 25th Festival de Chaillol on Saturday, 31 July 2021, in a packed community hall in the Serre-Ponçon: Val d’Avance area (Hautes-Alpes, France). Besides Tortiller’s “On ne danse qu’une seule fois” and Monk’s “Bemsha Swing”, the duo played a piece by the “Austrian composer Harry Pepl”. Preserved in the festival’s 2021 activity report, pp. 55 to 56.

    classics such as Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing”, or another by the Austrian composer Harry Pepl.

  5. 17 August 1988 · Review · FR

    Le Monde: „Michel Portal: « Men's land »“

    F. M. (wahrscheinlich Francis Marmande)

    Record review in Le Monde, the Paris daily, of Michel Portal's Amiens recording “Men's Land” (Label Bleu). The review calls the line-up “particularly well chosen” and lists Jack DeJohnette, Dave Liebman, Mino Cinelu, Harry Pepl and Jean-François Jenny-Clark. It is signed with initials, very probably “F. M.” for Francis Marmande, the paper's jazz critic.

  6. 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

  7. 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)

  8. 17 January 1984 · Review · FR

    Le Monde: „Berio, Aperghis et Portal: les anges et les démons“

    Concert report in Le Monde on a programme with works by Luciano Berio and Georges Aperghis and a performance by Michel Portal. Pepl played in Portal’s group during these years.