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An anecdote that shows how deeply Pepl, despite his modern, highly virtuosic guitar playing, was also rooted in the jazz guitar tradition

to this day a very vivid memory of one of Austria's greatest jazz guitarists

Felber calls him Austria’s most internationally renowned jazz drummer and recalls his ensembles of the 1980s, among them Air Mail with Harry Pepl and Wolfgang Puschnig, the Vienna Art Orchestra and his work in France.

Guests include the music producer Daniel Pepl, the drummer Wolfgang Reisinger and the pianist Anna Maurer, who is working on a solo piano album of Pepl’s compositions. According to the running order, recorded statements by Wolfgang Muthspiel and Guido Jesenzky on Harry Pepl as musician and as teacher were added. The music ranged from the Austrian Evergreens (1960) via Benny Goodman, the Jazzzwio, Air Mail, Michel Portal, Enrico Rava and the Kronos Quartet to the Fullmax releases of 2015 and 2020. Muthspiel requested “The Day We Know Paul Desmond Is Gone”, Jesenzky “Germ in A” (both Jazzzwio); Anna Maurer contributed her version of “Air, Love & Vitamins” (2020). Director: Daniela Fietzek, sound engineer: Georg Janser.

His Austrian-American quartet Airmail was probably one of the best jazz groups of Austrian provenance.

Harry Pepl, definitely, with whom I played in the Airmail band for seven years.

Wolfgang Puschnig

the seven years with Airmail, the band of the guitarist Harry Pepl, who died in 2005

As a guitarist he was outside every norm. That opened up a new, more flexible approach to phrasing for me.

Wolfgang Puschnig

The title alludes to the line „Heimat bist du großer Söhne“ [“Homeland of great sons”] of the Austrian national anthem; the programme opens with “In this case it really is one of the sons” and calls Air Mail “probably one of the best jazz groups of Austrian origin”. Playlist: Air Mail with “Shifting People” and “The Halley’s Comet / Light Blue Blues”, “Salt and Pepl” with the ORF Big Band under Richard Österreicher, “Harry Pepl’s Blues” with Benny Goodman, “Against The Wind” live with the Jazzzwio, “Eastern Island Ears” with Dave Liebman and Wolfgang Reisinger, a part of “Anspannen, Überspannen, Abspannen” with STUDIO PERCUSSION graz, Peter Alexander’s “Sag’ mir quando, sag’ mir wann” (Pepl as studio guitarist) and finally “Air, Love & Vitamins” with Werner Pirchner and Jack DeJohnette.

The tribute to an individualist.

In this case it really is one of the sons.

Legendary, too, his collaboration with the singer Linda Sharrock or his projects with Harry Pepl (“Air Mail”).

A few days before the fifth anniversary of Pepl's death, the trombone duo Daniel Riegler and Matthias Muche plays three arrangements of Pepl pieces, among them “125/250” from the Air Mail years.

A few days before the fifth anniversary of the death of the Viennese jazz guitarist and composer, the trombone duo Daniel Riegler and Matthias Muche delivered three elegantly polished arrangements, of which the notorious “125/250” from Pepl's Airmail days came closest to his jagged style.

Besides Part Of Art, he names Air Mail with Wolfgang Puschnig, Mike Richmond and Harry Pepl as the second important band of his own during his time in the Vienna Art Orchestra. Pepl, he says, was the first of the great musicians from whom he could learn a lot, “a real genius”. He recounts how John Scofield called out “I’ll kill you!” to Pepl as they changed over on stage, and mentions tapes of a live performance that are almost better than the two studio albums.

Time and again I have had the good fortune to meet great musicians from whom you could really learn a lot, and the first of them was definitely Harry Pepl. He was a real genius and a great guitarist, with an energy and seriousness that showed you where things could go.

Wolfgang Reisinger

I still remember well how we once came off the stage, John Scofield went on, and in passing he said to Harry, ‘I’ll kill you!’. Those are the little experiences you don’t forget. That really was a totally hot band back then.

Wolfgang Reisinger

It shows Pepl as an entry in a German series on classics of jazz history.

He is the European jazz guitarist par excellence.

I simply learned his musical language.

Wolfgang Puschnig

It was an extreme pull. Suddenly playing with someone who stands up there, two floors above us, steps on the gas so confidently and carries everything along with him.

Wolfgang Reisinger

To me he was a Franz Schubert kind of guy: incredibly beautiful songs, but of the highest quality, and the next moment completely bizarre and jagged.

The drummer Wolfgang Reisinger. “Schubert Franzl” is the affectionate Viennese way of referring to Franz Schubert (1797 to 1828), the Viennese composer celebrated for his songs

Wolfgang Reisinger

It describes his training, his ORF studio job, the Jazzzwio, Air Mail and the time with Benny Goodman, names students such as Wolfgang Muthspiel and Peter Havlicek, and gives Monday, 5 December 2005, as the date of death. The former rector of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Otto Kolleritsch, is quoted; readers’ letters supplement the text.

Now that I can play everything I want, I’m no longer allowed to.

Harry Pepl

Divinely gifted guitarist and an exceptional phenomenon

Otto Kolleritsch

an unmistakable musician from Vienna, recognised all over the world

one of the defining instrumentalists of the European jazz scene

the legendary “Light Blues” by Harry Pepl’s “Airmail”. Wonderful.

First comes “Light Blues” by Air Mail, the quartet’s second and last record, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Wolfgang Reisinger and Mike Richmond. Pepl describes the band’s “telepathic understanding”; the review quotes from the liner notes (by Andreas Felber according to Discogs) his playing “marked by rough, jagged cascades of notes” and highlights the then still young MIDI technology. For Wolfgang Puschnig’s “Pieces Of The Dream” (No. 5) Pepl is named among the duo partners.

playing marked by rough, jagged cascades of notes

Andreas Felber

The interplay of the whole band, in which we had developed a telepathic understanding, was what made Airmail special for me.

Looking back in 2001 on his quartet Air Mail

Harry Pepl

Air Mail played with Jean-Paul Celea (called “Jean-Pierre” in the text) instead of Palle Danielsson on double bass; Pepl is described as „Gitarren-Mastermind“ [“guitar mastermind”].

Airmail, with Jean-Pierre Celea instead of Palle Danielsson on double bass, was devoted to guitar mastermind Harry Pepl.

“Air Mail” was one of the most successful Austrian bands.

Almost everything this country has to offer in jazz of international quality is gathered here.

“Cracked Mirrors” with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen was initiated and co-financed by the Graz arts association gamsbART and taken over by ECM (the renowned European jazz label).

“Cracked Mirrors” is the name of the LP featuring the three jazz musicians in truly outstanding form.

On Sunday, 5 July, Air Mail was billed alongside George Russell’s big band, the Johnny Griffin Quartet and Duo Due; the agency announced the band with „Österreichs erstem Gitarristen“ [“Austria’s foremost guitarist”].

AirMail with Austria’s foremost guitarist Harry Pepl

APA JAZZ NEWS (Austria Presse Agentur)

It mentions a concert with Werner Pirchner, the Family of Percussion and Steve Swallow in Hamburg, Germany, a seminar by Peter Giger in Wengen, Switzerland, with Ronald Shannon Jackson, and a performance in Moers, Germany, with Wolfgang Puschnig, Wolfgang Reisinger and Mike Richmond. The performances mentioned, Moers in May 1984 and the jazz workshop of the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the public broadcaster for northern Germany) in Hamburg, date the issue to 1984; Nikolaus Kohler cites the collaboration with the Family of Percussion from Jazzlive no. 14, September 1984. It is one of two Jazzlive covers featuring Pepl; the second shows him with Air Mail (no. 20, April 1985).

There is no doubt that Harry Pepl must today be counted among the leading jazz guitarists in Europe.