Alfred "Fred" Böhler (July 26, 1912, Zürich - January 10, 1995, Zumikon) was a Swiss jazz keyboardist and bandleader. Böhler started on violin as a child but later switched to piano. He led his own ensemble starting in 1936, which featured

Eddie Brunner Eduard "Eddie" Brunner (July 19, 1912, Zurich - July 18, 1960, Zurich) was a Swiss jazz reedist and bandleader. Brunner learned to play clarinet, piano, and tenor and alto saxophone, and began playing professionally in the early 1930s with Rene D ...

and

Hazy Osterwald Rolf Osterwald, better known as Hazy Osterwald (February 18, 1922 in Bern – February 26, 2012 in Lucerne) was a Swiss jazz bandleader, trumpeter, and vibraphonist. Osterwald began his career as a pianist. He arranged for Fred Böhler in the ...

, among others, as sidemen. This group made several tours of Switzerland during World War II and recorded copiously for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. In 1943, Böhler conducted an orchestral ensemble that played

symphonic jazz A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning co ...

. While he recorded most often on piano, he also used

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

early in a jazz context.

References

*J.-R. Hippenmeyer, ''Le jazz en Suisse, 1930-1970'' (Yverdon, Switzerland, 1971) *Fred Böhler Kuratorium, ''Fred Böhler: sein Leben, seine Music'' (Dübendorf, Switzerland, 1996) *Rainer E. Lotz, "Fred Böhler". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed.

Barry Kernfeld Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians. Education In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at U ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bohler, Fred 1912 births 1995 deaths Swiss jazz bandleaders Swiss jazz pianists Musicians from Zürich 20th-century pianists