Siegfried Loch

Siegfried 'Siggi' Loch (born 9 August 1940) is a German record producer, a record industry executive, and the founder of the ACT Music record label. As both a producer and record label pioneer, Loch is considered to have had a significant impact on the exposure, development, and success of modern jazz music, particularly European jazz.

During his career Loch has produced recordings for some of the most recognisable names in jazz, including Yusef Lateef, Eddie Harris, Joe Pass, Tim Hagans, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Brubeck, Vijay Iyer, Vince Mendoza, George Gruntz, Esbjörn Svensson Trio and Manu Katché; many more released albums on his ACT Music label.

Early life

Loch was born in the German town of Stolp, now SÅ‚upsk in present-day Poland. His family fled East Germany in 1951 to Hanover and initially endured financial hardship. Loch's interest in jazz developed after gatecrashing a Sidney Bechet concert in May 1956. Loch described this event as "life changing", stating in a 2020 interview:

He developed as a jazz drummer in the years thereafter but considered his talents insufficient to become a musician. He therefore resolved to remain creatively connected to music through other means.

Career

In 1960, Loch joined Electrola, a German subsidiary of EMI, as a foreign sale representative, introducing him to the operations of the recording industry. By 1963, Loch had moved to Hamburg to assume label management responsibility for the jazz section of Philips. Soon afterwards he was persuaded label bosses that he should also assume production responsibilities.

Loch's first production credit was ''Jazz Made In Germany'' by the Klaus Doldinger Quartet, the first German jazz album to enjoy a global release. Other early production work was undertaken for George Gruntz, Ingfried Hoffmann, and Don Paulin. Tapping into the growing public interest in blues and rock 'n' roll emerging from outside established jazz clubs, Loch briefly diversified the label by recording and producing a number of acts tangential to German jazz, including Spencer Davis, The Searchers, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Widely regarded as one of the greatest live rock 'n' roll albums ever recorded, Loch's "uncomplicated" production on Jerry Lee Lewis's ''Live at the Star Club, Hamburg'' was key to capturing the band's raw, raucous performance.

By the late 1960s, Loch had become the managing director of the German arm of the newly formed Liberty Records/United Artists label in Munich, with special responsibility for the Blue Note Records catalogue. In 1971 he became founding managing director of WEA Music Hamburg (later to become Warner Music Germany). During this time Loch continued his production activities, including a touchstone recording of Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond and the Dave Brubeck Trio. Loch's time at WEA enabled him to work alongside seminal Atlantic Records jazz producer, Nesuhi Ertegun, who later appointed him president of WEA-Europe in London. His ascendancy within the recording industry was reflected in his commercial successes, which some attribute to his zeal for valuing the priorities of artists and listeners, described as a "balancing act between ethics and profitability".

ACT Music

Loch's seniority within the industry increasingly distracted him from his original musical passions, particularly production:

After some initial failures, Loch fulfilled his jazz dreams by successfully establishing ACT Music in 1992, named for his commitment to enable musicians' artistic expression. Loch's first production project with ACT Music was the jazz-flamenco crossover, ''Jazzpaña'', with The Mendoza-Mardin Project. ''Jazzpaña'' assembled Spanish and US musicians with the Cologne-based WDR Big Band, performing arrangements by the then unknown American saxophonist Vince Mendoza. Guests included Michael Brecker, Al Di Meola, Peter Erskine, and Steve Khan. ''Jazzpaña'' received critical acclaim and enjoyed two Grammy nominations, quickly establishing the jazz credentials of the label. Loch has remarked that the ''Jazzpaña'' album "set the blueprint" for the ACT Music ethos, which entailed developing a "European-flavoured aesthetic" packaged with a distinctive design-led look, inspired by labels such as Blue Note and CTI.

With Loch's label management and proficiency in production, ACT Music has since become one of the largest and most successful jazz labels in the world, issuing over 700 albums. Many of these albums have attracted critical plaudits, including prizes or nominations. Prizes have included the German Echo Music Awards, the Norwegian Spellemannprisen, the UK Mercury Music Prize, the US Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Swedish Grammis, among others. An artist that brought ACT Music to international attention was Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson, along with his collaborators Magnus Öström and Dan Berglund, who together formed e.s.t. e.s.t. released a string of acclaimed albums on ACT Music and are considered to have been highly influential on modern jazz music, as well as commercially successful. Though their commercial success in Europe was not replicated in the US, their impact was nevertheless such that they became the first European jazz musicians to feature on the cover of '' DownBeat''. Loch has continued to develop an extensive catalogue for ACT Music and has projected the musical profiles of numerous European jazz artists, including Joachim Kühn, Michael Wollny, Nguyên Lê, Adam Bałdych, Marius Neset, Émile Parisien, and Lars Danielsson, as well as US artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Scott DuBois.

The success of ACT Music has been attributed to Loch's progressive approach to label management, which has included Loch's ability to identify creative talent and harness his role as a producer to give "optimal exposure to unusual talents". ACT Music is one of the few labels to demonstrate gender parity on its executive board.

Personal life

Loch is a passionate collector of post-war and contemporary art, some of which features as artwork on ACT Music album releases. This is a passion shared with his wife, Sissi Loch, whom he married in 1964. The Siggi & Sissi Loch Collection includes works by Yves Klein, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Per Kirkeby and Sigmar Polke, among many others. Some have been auctioned to support the Siggi & Sissi Loch Charitable Foundation. One of Loch's first art acquisitions was by Gerhard Richter, costing close to 15,000 Deutschmarks upon purchase in the early 1970s. Selling the artwork some 40 years later financed Loch's purchase of a house in Berlin.

Awards

* 1998 German Record Critics Award ('Ehrenpreise') : Producer
* 2010 1st Class Knight, the Royal Order Of The Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden : For work promoting Swedish jazz
* 2014 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany : In recognition of his merits for the country and the people
* 2023 'Basisten' Award, Swedish Jazz Association : for support of Swedish jazz

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loch, Siegfried
German record producers
German musicians
German jazz musicians
1940 births
Living people
People from SÅ‚upsk