Karl Berger

Karl Berger
Birth name	Karl Hans Berger
Born	March 30, 1935 (age 83)
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Pianist, composer, educator
Instruments	Piano

Karl Hans Berger (born March 30, 1935 in Heidelberg, Germany) is a jazz pianist, composer, and educator.

Career[edit]

Berger played piano in Germany when he was ten and worked in his teens at a club in Heidelberg. He learned modern jazz from visiting American musicians, such as Don Ellis and Leo Wright. During the 1960s, he started playing vibraphone and received a doctoral degree in musicology. He worked as a member of Don Cherry's band in Paris. When the band went to New York City to record Symphony for Improvisers, he recorded his debut album as a leader.^[1]

With Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso, he founded the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, in 1972, to encourage students to pursue their own ideas about music. Berger considered Coleman his friend and mentor, and like Coleman he was drawn to avant-garde jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.^[1]

He has worked with Carla Bley, Dave Holland, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, Gunther Schuller, Clifford Thornton, the Mingus Epitaph Orchestra, and the Globe Unity Orchestra. He collaborated with Bill Laswell as musical arranger and conductor, thus contributing to albums by Jeff Buckley, Better Than Ezra, Buckethead, Natalie Merchant, Sly & Robbie, Angélique Kidjo, Hōzan Yamamoto, and Shin Terai.

Discography[edit]

As leader[edit]

1966: Karl Berger Quartet (ESP-Disk)
1968: Tune In, KB Quartet, with Carlos Ward, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell (Milestone)
1971: We Are You, with Allen Blairman
1972: With Silence, with Masahito Sato (Enja)
1974: Peace Church Concerts, with Dave Holland, Ingrid Sertso (CMC)
1976: All Kind of Time, with Dave Holland (Sackville)
1977: Changing the Time, with Ingrid Sertso (Horo)
1979: Seasons Change (Circle) with Lee Konitz
1979: New Moon (Palcoscenico)
1979: Woodstock Workshop Orchestra, with Don Cherry, Oliver Lake, Lee Konitz, Ingrid Sertso a.o (MPS)
1982: Conversations, with R. Anderson, C. Ward, D. Holland, B. Ulmer a.o. (In+Out)
1985: Again+Again, with Hozan Yamamoto (JVC)
1986: Transit, with Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell (Black Saint)
1990: Crystal Fire, with Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell (Enja)
1991: Around, with Santi Debriano, Leroy Williams, Paul Shigihara (Black Saint)
1991: Berger/Shigihara, with Paul Shigihara (Bellaphon)
1991: Moondance Suite, with Ingrid Sertso, Sudpool Ensemble Stuttgart (Bellaphon)
1996: No Man Is an Island, with Jean-Louis Matinier, Ernst Reijseger, Enrico Rava a.o (Knitting Factory)
2001: Stillpoint, with Ingrid Sertso, John Lindberg, Peter Apfelbaum, Tani Tabbal a.o. (Double Moon)
2004: On+On, with Ingrid Sertso (ACR)
2006: Duets 1, with John Lindberg (Between the Lines)
2010: Strangely Familiar, (Tzadik)
2014: Gently Unfamiliar, with Joe Fonda, Harvey Sorgen (Tzadik)
2018: In A Moment, with strings (Tzadik)