Press archive
What was written and broadcast about Harry Pepl: reviews, portraits, interviews and obituaries, with summary and source. The originals are protected by copyright and kept in the archive; we provide them to researchers and the press on request.
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July 1986 · Review · FR
Jazz Hot, no. 432: „Du jazz sous les pommiers“
Alain Guerrini
Festival report by Alain Guerrini in the July/August issue of Jazz Hot, the French jazz magazine founded in 1935, on the 5th Jazz sous les pommiers in Coutances (Normandy, France) from 3 to 10 May 1986. On the closing night, at the theatre, Guerrini discovered Air Mail with Wolfgang Puschnig, Harry Pepl, Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger as “un groupe prodigieux”, a prodigious group: from the Berlin ballad to hard rock, their music brought almost a century of music history back to life. As the most telling piece he names “Halley Comet”, probably Pepl's “The Halley's Comet Light Blue Blues”. The Eddy Louiss Big Band closed the evening. Jazz Hot names Puschnig as the band's leader; according to Daniel Pepl, Air Mail had no leader, and the statement is an error in the report. Guerrini gives 10 p.m. as the starting time, the festival archive 9 p.m.
There I discovered a prodigious group: Air Mail
Alain Guerrini in Jazz Hot on the closing night of the Jazz sous les pommiers festival in Coutances, France, on Saturday, 10 May 1986, according to the festival programme, Air Mail's first concert in France
“Halley Comet” is the most telling piece of this cosmic quartet.
Alain Guerrini on Air Mail's concert in Coutances, France, in May 1986; “Halley Comet” is probably Pepl's “The Halley's Comet Light Blue Blues”, later the title track of Air Mail's album “Light Blues” (1988)
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July 1986 · Review · FR
Jazz Hot, no. 432: „Amiens : le temps du jazz“
Franck Bergerot
Festival report by Franck Bergerot in the July/August issue of Jazz Hot, the French jazz magazine founded in 1935, on the “Le temps du jazz” festival in Amiens (France) from 13 to 24 May 1986, at which the festival also launched its record label, Label Bleu. Under the heading “Coup de chaleur” (roughly: a heatwave) he describes Air Mail's concert: fired up by Wolfgang Puschnig, driven by Mike Richmond and Wolfgang Reisinger, shaken up by an utterly unexpected Harry Pepl. To Bergerot it sounded as if Pepl wanted to pay tribute to the guitarist Joseph Dejean, who had died ten years earlier; in his playing he found again the thread of a history of the guitar that he had thought lost. The music was free, fresh, uninhibited and full of energy, and he had not enjoyed himself so much in a long time. The report gives no date for the concert. Thirty-five years later Bergerot paid tribute to Pepl again in Jazz Magazine, as “the late Austrian jazz guitarist”.
Air Mail, fired up by Wolfgang Puschnig, driven by the rhythm section of Mike Richmond / Wolfgang Reisinger and shaken up by an utterly unexpected Harry Pepl.
Franck Bergerot in Jazz Hot on Air Mail's concert at the “Le temps du jazz” festival in Amiens, France, in May 1986, under the heading “Coup de chaleur” (roughly: a heatwave)
There I found again the thread of a history of the guitar that I feared I had lost for good.
Franck Bergerot on Pepl's guitar playing at Air Mail's concert in Amiens, France, in May 1986; just before, he writes that had Pepl wanted to pay tribute to the guitarist Joseph Dejean, who had died ten years earlier, he could not have gone about it any differently
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8 June 2020 · Report · FR
Jazz Magazine (online): „Franck Tortiller / Misja Fitzgerald-Michel, disque imminent“
Xavier Prévost
In Jazz Magazine, the French jazz magazine, Xavier Prévost announces the duo album “Les heures propices” by the vibraphonist Franck Tortiller and the guitarist Misja Fitzgerald-Michel, released on Friday, 19 June 2020, and presents two videos; one of them, with a composition by Harry Pepl, recalls Tortiller's long spell in the Vienna Art Orchestra.
And also a reminder of the vibraphonist’s long spell in the Vienna Art Orchestra, with a composition by Harry Pepl
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3 October 2021 · Review · FR
CultureJazz: „13 arches... en jazz, ça porte bonheur ?“
Thierry Giard
Festival report by Thierry Giard (photos Christian Ducasse) in CultureJazz (French jazz magazine) on “Les Arches en Jazz” 2021. At the concert by Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel on Saturday, 25 September 2021, at noon in the church of Notre-Dame in Port-Bail-sur-Mer, the programme included compositions by Harry Pepl, Jim Pepper, David Crosby and Thelonious Monk alongside their own pieces. Giard had already heard the duo on 31 July 2021 in Rambaud (Hautes-Alpes).
On the menu that lunchtime were original compositions but also pieces by the Austrian guitarist Harry Pepl, the Native American saxophonist Jim Pepper, David Crosby and Thelonious Monk.
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4 October 2021 · Review · FR
Citizen Jazz: „Les Arches en jazz, une première“
Marie Boisnel
Report by Marie Boisnel in Citizen Jazz (French jazz magazine) on the first “Les Arches en Jazz” festival in Port-Bail-sur-Mer (Cotentin, Normandy, France). At the midday concert in the church of Notre-Dame, the duo Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald Michel played “Air, Love and Vitamins”, Pepl’s “gentle ballad” written for the same duo of guitar and vibraphone with Werner Pirchner.
Then the gentle ballad by the Austrian guitarist and composer Harry Pepl, written for the same duo with Werner Pirchner, guitar and vibraphone, “Air, love and vitamins”, plunges us into a languorous meditation.
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9 November 2021 · Review · FR
Jazz Magazine (online): „Nevers assis le matin, debout le soir“
Franck Bergerot
Festival report by Franck Bergerot in Jazz Magazine, the French jazz magazine, from the D'Jazz Nevers festival (Burgundy, France). The duo of Franck Tortiller (vibraphone) and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel (guitar) played its programme “Les heures propices”, songs by the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, at noon on a Monday, probably on 8 November 2021. It included a piece by Harry Pepl, whom Bergerot honours as “the late Austrian jazz guitarist” who knew that melodic freshness and harmonic candour.
a borrowing from the late Austrian jazz guitarist Harry Pepl (who knew that melodic freshness, that harmonic candour and its disarming anachronisms)
The French jazz critic Franck Bergerot on a piece by Pepl in “Les heures propices”, the programme of the duo Franck Tortiller and Misja Fitzgerald-Michel (songs by the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s), at the D'Jazz Nevers festival in Nevers, France, in 2021
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26 October 2026 · Report · FR
Jazz Magazine (online): „Harry Pepl (1945-2005) : un site trilingue sur la carrière du grand guitariste autrichien“ new
Xavier Prévost
Report by Xavier Prévost in Jazz Magazine, the French jazz magazine (Actualité section), on Monday, 26 October 2026: on the initiative of Harry Pepl’s son Daniel, a trilingual archive of Pepl’s career, in German, English and French, has been online since that day. Prévost recalls that Pepl was heard in France with the French saxophonist and clarinettist Michel Portal, the American drummer Jack DeJohnette and the Swiss drummer Daniel Humair, and that French musicians still play his compositions today. He calls the archive a veritable mine of information on his life, career, compositions and extensive discography, with an inventory of radio and television programmes and of press articles in which Pepl appears. The report shows a photograph of Pepl and the covers of “N.Y.C. Impressure”, “Pirchner Pepl DeJohnette”, and Michel Portal’s “Men’s Land” and “Turbulence”.
It is a veritable mine of information on this great soloist, who made himself heard throughout Europe and in the United States as well
We heard him in France with Michel Portal, Jack DeJohnette, Daniel Humair