![Mkunzler02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Mkunzler02.JPG)
Martin Kunzler (born 29 April 1947) is a German jazz bassist and music journalist. He gained particular fame through his ''rororo Jazz-Lexikon'' published by
Rowohlt Verlag
Rowohlt Verlag is a German publishing house based in Hamburg, with offices in Reinbek and Berlin. It has been part of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Group since 1982. The company was created in 1908 in Leipzig by Ernst Rowohlt.
Divisions
* Kinder
* ...
, which is now considered the standard German-language work on this musical genre.
Life
Kunzler was born in
Lörrach
Lörrach () is a town in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss borders. It is the capital of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. It is the home of a number of large employers, including the ...
as the youngest of six siblings and went to the and the Wirtschaftsgymnasium . From 1960, he took
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
lessons with
Chester Gill, and from 1964 he studied double bass with Michel Delannois as well as
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
with
Gerd Watkinson in Basel. After his marriage and the birth of his son Claudio, Kunzler completed a traineeship as newspaper editor at the in Lörrach from 1966 to 1968, after which he was editor and feature correspondent of the
Schwarzwälder Bote
''Schwarzwälder Bote'', also known as ''Schwabo'', is a German regional daily newspaper for the Black Forest and Upper Neckar region.
''Schwabo'' operates a network of 15 branches, three service points, and 18 local editorial offices. The m ...
until 1969. In 1967/68, he also held a teaching position at the Pädagogische Hochschule Lörrach in the subjects ''Double Bass'' and ''Workshop for Neue Musik''.
Kunzler was also active in
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
musical projects with the Tübingen ensemble of Heinz Kunzler and Wolfgang Hamm and the ensembles around Percy Gerd Watkinson. Numerous concerts and tours as a jazz musician followed, among others with
Oscar Klein
Oscar Klein (5 January 1930 in Graz, Austria – 12 December 2006 in Baden-Württemberg) was an Austrian born jazz trumpeter who also played clarinet, harmonica, and swing guitar. His family fled the Nazis when he was young. He became known ...
,
Raymond Droz Raymond Droz (January 23, 1934, La Chaux-De-Fonds - June 29, 2000, Zurich) was a Swiss jazz trombonist, arranger, and bandleader.
Droz won first prize at the first Zurich Jazz Festival in 1951 as a trombonist. In the next few years he played with ...
,
Ewald Heidepriem, ,
Phil Woods
Philip Wells Woods (November 2, 1931 – September 29, 2015) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer.
Biography
Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began ...
,
Lee Konitz
Leon Konitz (October 13, 1927 – April 15, 2020) was an American composer and alto saxophonist.
He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz ...
,
Albert Nicholas
Albert Nicholas (May 27, 1900 – September 3, 1973) was an American jazz clarinet player.
Career
Nicholas's primary instrument was the clarinet, which he studied with Lorenzo Tio in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Late ...
,
Milt Buckner
Milton Brent Buckner (July 10, 1915 – July 27, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and organist, who in the early 1950s popularized the Hammond organ.Arwulf ArwulfMilt Buckner biography All Music. He pioneered the parallel chords styleFeathe ...
,
Attila Zoller
Attila Cornelius Zoller (June 13, 1927 – January 25, 1998) was a Hungarian jazz guitarist. After World War II, he escaped the Soviet takeover of Hungary by fleeing through the mountains on foot into Austria. In 1959, he moved to the U.S., wher ...
,
Stu Martin,
Jean-Louis Chautemps
Jean-Louis Chautemps (6 August 1931 – 25 May 2022) was a French jazz saxophonist.
Career
Born in Paris, Chautemps initially studied medicine and law, and began playing saxophone at age 16. His first major gig was with Jef Gilson in 1950. In 1 ...
,
Pony Poindexter
Norwood "Pony" Poindexter (February 8, 1926, New Orleans, Louisiana – April 14, 1988, Oakland, California) was an American jazz saxophonist.
Poindexter began on clarinet and switched to playing alto and tenor sax. In 1940 he studied unde ...
and above all for many years with the American
arranger
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...
Bob Carter.
From 1970 to 1972, Kunzler was head of the feature section of the ' in Bielefeld; during this time he also published his first book as co-author alongside Bernhard Conz with the title ''Gerettet auf dem Steinway-Flügel''. After an interlude at the ''
Badische Zeitung
The ''Badische Zeitung'' (''Baden Newspaper'') is a German newspaper based in Freiburg im Breisgau, covering the South Western part of Germany and the Black Forest region. It has a circulation of 145,825 and a readership of 409,000. The paper was ...
'' in Freiburg im Breisgau, in 1973 he took over the PR department of Musikproduktion in Hamburg and later in Mannheim. There he mainly looked after the record labels
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group.
Its Latin name ''ha ...
and
Musik Produktion Schwarzwald, one specialising in
early music
Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical m ...
and the other in jazz.
Kunzler also worked as a producer, not in jazz but in the classical field (and there mainly as a specialist for modern and
early music
Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical m ...
). As an editor, he has designed many projects in this field; important permanent partners were
Carl Orff
Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata ''Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education.
Life
Early life
Car ...
,
Gary Bertini
Gary Bertini ( he, גארי ברתיני, May 1, 1927 – March 17, 2005) was one of the most important Israeli musicians and conductors.
In 1978 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Music.
Biography
Gary Bertini was born ''Shloyme Golergant'' in ...
, and
Peter Michael Hamel
Peter Michael Hamel (born 15 July 1947 in Munich) is a German composer. His works have been associated with the minimalist style of composition, and in the late 1970s with the New Simplicity movement.
He is the son of the film director Peter ...
.
![Mkunzler01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Mkunzler01.jpg)
After BASF's withdrawal from the music business in 1976, he worked as a freelancer for record companies such as
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
(Production archive),
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
,
Wergo
WERGO is a German record label focusing on contemporary classical music. It was founded in 1962 by German art historian and music publisher (1903–1975) and the musicologist Helmut Kirchmeyer. Their first release, filed under "WER 60001", was S ...
,
Teldec
Teldec (Telefunken-Decca Schallplatten GmbH) is a German record label in Hamburg, Germany. Today the label is a property of Warner Music Group.
History
Teldec was a producer of (first) shellac and (later) vinyl records. The Teldec manufacturing ...
(The Old Work) or
Bellaphon
Bellaphon Records is an independent German record label of Bellaphon records GmbH. The label produces its own artists and distributes those of other labels.
Recording artists
* Johnny Cash
* The Flippers
* Ganymed
* Geordie
* Joan Jett & th ...
,
WDR,
ORF
ORF or Orf may refer to:
* Norfolk International Airport, IATA airport code ORF
* Observer Research Foundation, an Indian research institute
* One Race Films, a film production company founded by Vin Diesel
* Open reading frame, a portion of the ...
and the
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...
,
Schott Music
Schott Music () is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe, and is the second oldest music publisher after Breitkopf & Härtel. The company headquarters of Schott Music were fou ...
and newspapers or magazines such as the ''
Neue Musikzeitung'' (nmz, Bosse Verlag), ''
Das Orchester
''Das Orchester'' is a German-language magazine for musicians and management which has been published eleven times a year since 1953 by Schott Music and is distributed in over 45 countries worldwide. The editor-in-chief is based in Berlin while ...
'', Melos, Musica, Musik und Bildung, Fonoforum, Stereo, Disk (Holland), the ', numerous daily newspapers and popular magazines up to ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
K ...
''.
In 1977 he joined the ''
Boehringer Mannheim
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX ...
'' as press spokesman, (later
Roche Diagnostics
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX S ...
), but retained his freelance activities as author and producer. From 1980 onwards, his work for the first edition of the Rowohlt-Jazzlexikon moved into the foreground. It was published in 1988, followed by various supplemented or unchanged new editions and a completely revised new version in 2002.
Kunzler also collaborates to the ''
Neue Deutsche Biographie
''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (''NDB''; literally ''New German Biography'') is a biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 26 volumes published thus far cover ...
'' of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...
. He has also been active in the field of museums, including essayistic contributions for exhibition catalogues and, in 2002, marketing for a major
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art s ...
retrospective at the
Kunsthalle Mannheim
The Kunsthalle Mannheim is a museum of modern and contemporary art, built in 1907, established in 1909 and located in Mannheim, Germany. Since then it has housed the city's art collections as well as temporary exhibitions – and up to 1927 those ...
.
Work
* ''Gerettet auf dem Steinway-Flügel. Bernhard Conz über Conz und andere''. Busse Verlag, Herford 1971.
* ''Jazz-Lexikon''. Extended new edition Rowohlt, Reinbek 2002 (digitally available via Directmedia Publishing Berlin 2006).
# ''A–L''. .
# ''M–Z''. .
* ''Wir und wie wir wohnen''.
''Wir & wie wir wohnen''
on WorldCat Neu Heidelberg, Heidelberg 2018,
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunzler, Martin
German music journalists
Jazz writers
1947 births
Living people
People from Lörrach