Karl Berger
| Karl Berger | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Karl Hans Berger |
| Born | March 30, 1935 |
| 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.
Contents
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)
As sideman[edit]
With Carla Bley
With Anthony Braxton
- Creative Orchestra Music 1976 (Arista, 1976)
With Don Cherry
- Live at Cafe Montmartre Vols. 1–3 (ESP, 1966)
- Symphony for Improvisers (Blue Note)
- Multikuti (A&M, 1990)
- Eternal Rhythm (MPS)
With Conjoint
- Earprint (Source)
With Theo Jörgensmann
- Fellowship (Hathut)
With Lee Konitz
- Duets (Milestone)
With Bill Laswell
- Jazzonia (Douglas)
- Operazone – The Redesign (Knitting Factory, 2000)
With Kesang Marstrand
- Bodega Rose
With John McLaughlin
- Where Fortune Smiles (Pye)
With Charles Mingus
With Pete Namlook
- Polytime (FAX +49-69/450464)
With Ingrid Sertso
- Dance with It (Enja)
- What Do I Know (Konnex)
With Clifford Thornton
- Freedom & Unity (New World, 1967)
As producer[edit]
- Kesang Marstrand Our Myth (North Node, 2011)
References[edit]
- ^ a b Kelsey, Chris. "Karl Berger". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
External links[edit]
- 1935 births
- Living people
- People from Heidelberg
- People from the Republic of Baden
- Post-bop vibraphonists
- Post-bop pianists
- Post-bop composers
- German jazz composers
- Male jazz composers
- ESP-Disk artists
- Enja Records artists
- MPS Records artists
- Milestone Records artists
- Avant-garde jazz pianists
- Avant-garde jazz composers
- Avant-garde jazz vibraphonists
- German musicologists
- German jazz pianists
- German jazz vibraphonists
- People from Woodstock, New York
- German male pianists
- 21st-century pianists
- 21st-century male musicians
- Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts faculty
- Machine Gun (band) members
- Sackville Records artists
