Wolfgang Muthspiel

I think he was an international figure and definitely had his own voice.

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”

As a musician, Pepl gave expression to inner avalanches.

The first thing that comes to mind [is] the authority on time […]. And on the guitar perhaps the one who, in that respect, has gone further than any other musician. I love the way Pat Metheny handles time. I think it swings completely. […] But what Harry Pepl ‘pulls off’ is another planet. And how flexible his time is, so that it doesn’t all just run within a fixed rhythmic grid.

Answer in an interview with Martin Schaberl in Vienna, Austria, on 2 September 2003, when Schaberl named musicians and asked what first came to his mind; at the Graz jazz department Muthspiel had studied jazz guitar only with Pepl

He did a great deal for me rhythmically. What Mick Goodrick means in my case for the voicings, the accompaniment, Harry Pepl means for the rhythm, the time, the swing.

In an interview with Lothar Trampert for the German guitar magazine Gitarre & Bass (issue 7/1998), asked about the influence of his Graz teacher; Mick Goodrick later became Muthspiel’s teacher in Boston, USA

The lessons with him at the conservatory were like an extended concert.

listening again now, I noticed once more how magnificently Pepl and Pirchner played. That was improvisation in the best sense.

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’].

The time I studied with Pepl was very formative. The lessons with him at the conservatory were like an extended concert.

I was also very lucky to have a superb teacher in Graz, Harry Pepl, jazz guitarist, a truly great jazz musician, […] who really is a great authority on the instrument and is also held in very high esteem by many very well-known jazz musicians.

In conversation with Herbert Uhlir, head of the jazz department of Ö1, ORF’s cultural radio station, just before the concert of his trio with Marc Johnson and Brian Blade at Porgy & Bess, Vienna’s best-known jazz club, on 28 January 2003

When the two of them played, it was an event. The immense rhythmic power was incredible

He is an interesting musician to check out, especially in the rhythmical field.

There was also an important guitar player by the name of Harry Pepl, who was my teacher. He had a unique sound and was a heavy player, with a great sense of time.