Vera Auer (later Vera Auer-Boucher) (April 20, 1919, Vienna – August 2, 1996, New York City) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

ist and

vibraphonist The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

. She was the niece of

Leopold Auer Leopold von Auer ( hu, Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. Early life and career Au ...

. Auer learned classical piano but turned to jazz after beginning to play with

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 ...

in the late 1940s. She formed her own band with Zoller which performed regularly on the Austrian radio station Österreichische Radioverkehrs AG in the early 1950s, then moved to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

in 1954. In Germany she played jazz festivals and accompanied

Donald Byrd Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop m ...

and

Art Taylor Arthur S. Taylor Jr. (April 6, 1929 – February 6, 1995) was an American jazz drummer, who "helped define the sound of modern jazz drumming".Watrous, Peter (February 7, 1995)"Art Taylor, 65, Jazz Drummer Who Inspired Young Musicians" ''The Ne ...

. After relocating to the United States in 1960, she worked with Dave Burns,

Ted Curson Theodore Curson (June 3, 1935 – November 4, 2012) was an American jazz trumpeter. Life and career Curson was born in Philadelphia. He became interested in playing trumpet after watching a newspaper salesman play a silver trumpet. Curson's fath ...

J. J. Johnson J.J. Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001), born James Louis Johnson and also known as Jay Jay Johnson, was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger. Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop. Biograph ...

Cal Massey Calvin "Cal" Massey (January 11, 1928 – October 25, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. Early life Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, Massey studied trumpet under Freddie Webster, and following this played in ...

Sonny Red Sylvester Kyner Jr. (December 17, 1932 – March 20, 1981), known as Sonny Red, was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer associated with the hard bop idiom among other styles. Sonny Red played with Art Blakey, Curtis Fuller, Paul Quin ...

, and

Zoot Sims John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's big ...

in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s she played with Richard Williams, both as a side performer and with her own ensemble.Klaus Schulz, "Vera Auer". '' 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 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Auer, Vera 1919 births 1996 deaths Austrian emigrants to the United States Jazz vibraphonists Jazz accordionists Musicians from Vienna 20th-century accordionists