Erich Kleinschuster (23 January 1930 – 12 September 2018) was an Austrian trombonist and bandleader.

Biography

Kleinschuster was born in

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

, and learned to play piano before learning how to play the trombone; his first major engagement was as a member of Fridl Althaler's Radio Graz dance orchestra. As a member of the International Youth Band, he appeared at the 1958

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, and worked with

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from 1958 to 1965, in addition to playing with

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and

Francy Boland François Boland (6 November 1929 – 12 August 2005) was a classically trained Belgian jazz composer and pianist. He first gained notice in 1949 and worked with Belgian jazz greats like Bobby Jaspar, and in 1955 he joined Chet Baker's quintet. M ...

's ensemble. He played with

Friedrich Gulda Friedrich Gulda (16 May 1930 – 27 January 2000) was an Austrian pianist and composer who worked in both the classical and jazz fields. Biography Early life and career Born in Vienna the son of a teacher, Gulda began learning to play the piano ...

in 1965, then put together a six-piece ensemble the following year, which performed frequently on

Österreichischer Rundfunk ('Austrian Broadcasting Corporation'; ORF) is an Austrian national public broadcaster. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Aus ...

. He founded Vienna's ''Jazzinstitut'' in 1968 and was the leader of Österreichischer Rundfunk's big band from 1972 until 1981; he was the conductor for the Austrian entries of the

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in 1972 and 1976. Among his jazz associations in the 1970s were

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Peter Herbolzheimer Peter Alexandru Herbolzheimer (31 December 1935 – 27 March 2010) was a Romanian-German jazz trombonist and bandleader. Biography Herbolzheimer was born to a Romanian mother and a German father in Bucharest, Romania. His family emigrated in 1 ...

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, and

Toots Thielemans Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans (29 April 1922 – 22 August 2016), known professionally as Toots Thielemans, was a Belgian jazz musician. He was mostly known for his chromatic harmonica playing, as well as his guitar and whistl ...

. In 1981 he moved back to Graz and became a lecturer in music at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, a position he held until 1998; he also put together a youth orchestra, JAM, which toured in the early 1990s.

References

*Klaus Schulz, "Erich Kleinschuster". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed.

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. 1930 births 2018 deaths Austrian jazz trombonists Austrian jazz bandleaders Musicians from Graz {{Austria-bio-stub