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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16 March 1985 · Review
Billboard (US-Musikfachzeitschrift mit den Branchen-Charts, gegründet 1894): Album Reviews, Jazz-Fusion: „Werner Pirchner / Harry Pepl / Jack DeJohnette“ (Recommended)
In its issue of Saturday, 16 March 1985 (vol. 97, no. 11), Billboard, the US music trade magazine founded in 1894 and home of the industry’s leading charts, reviews the ECM album (ECM 1237, via PolyGram Special Imports) on p. 66 in its Album Reviews under Jazz-Fusion and rates it “Recommended”, Billboard’s label for new releases the editors expect to chart in their format and for albums of superior quality. The unsigned capsule review calls Pirchner a mallet stylist, Pepl an acoustic guitarist and DeJohnette a timemaster, and describes a delicate, mood-rich chamber jazz record that recalls the strongest early productions in this vein by Manfred Eicher, founder and producer of ECM. At the same time, DownBeat presented the album on a full page in its April 1985 issue; this has its own entry in the press archive.
a delicate chamber jazz set rich in moods; recalls producer Eicher’s strongest early forays into this stream
Unsigned capsule review in the Album Reviews under Jazz-Fusion, rated “Recommended”, of the ECM album by Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl and Jack DeJohnette; Manfred Eicher is the founder and producer of ECM
1983 date teaming mallet stylist Pirchner, acoustic guitarist Pepl and timemaster DeJohnette
Unsigned capsule review in the Album Reviews under Jazz-Fusion, rated “Recommended”, of the ECM album by Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl and Jack DeJohnette
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April 1985 · Review · DE
Jazz Podium (vol. 34, no. 4, April 1985, p. 27): „Hang zur Poesie“ (Air Mail) new
Robert Urmann
Concert review by Robert Urmann in the German jazz magazine Jazz Podium on Air Mail with Harry Pepl, Wolfgang Puschnig, Wolfgang Reisinger and Mike Richmond. Listed in the Jazz Index of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, Germany; the archive does not hold the text.
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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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April 1988 · Review
Wire Magazine (heute The Wire), no. 50: Kritik zu „Volver“ (ECM 1343) in der Rubrik „Soundcheck“, Abschnitt „Fast Licks“
Mike Fish
Short review in the 50th issue of the British music magazine Wire (now The Wire), in the “Soundcheck” section under “Fast Licks”. Mike Fish reviews “Volver”, the album by the quintet of Enrico Rava (trumpet) and Dino Saluzzi (bandoneon) on ECM, the renowned European jazz label, with Harry Pepl (guitar), Furio Di Castri (bass) and Bruce Ditmas (drums). Saluzzi draws real lyricism from the bandoneon; together with Rava’s elegant trumpet and Pepl’s reverberant guitar, the result is music full of empathy and enthusiasm, and in “Minguito” the band plays very hot.
when matched with the grandee elegance of Rava’s style, and Pepl’s reverberant guitar, the music that results has a redemptive empathy and enthusiasm
Sometimes, as in “Minguito”, they blow very hot indeed.
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June 1988 · Review · DE
Jazz Podium (vol. 37, no. 6, June 1988, p. 48): „Joos-Pepl-Christensen“ new
Robert Urmann
Concert review by Robert Urmann in the German jazz magazine Jazz Podium on the trio with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen, whose album “Cracked Mirrors” appeared on ECM, the renowned European jazz label, in the same year. Listed in the Jazz Index of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, Germany; the archive does not hold the text.
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22 September 2008 · Review
All About Jazz (US-Jazzmagazin im Internet, gegründet 1995): „Wolfgang Schalk: Wanted“
Mark F. Turner
Review of the album “Wanted” (Frame Up Music, 2008) by the guitarist Wolfgang Schalk from Styria, Austria, in All About Jazz, the US online jazz magazine founded in 1995, with 4 out of 5 stars. Schalk recorded the album in Los Angeles, USA, with Geoffrey Keezer (piano), Dave Carpenter (bass) and Marvin “Smitty” Smith (drums). Mark F. Turner singles out the moving ballad “And Harry Said Goodbye”, which Schalk dedicated to Harry Pepl; he calls Pepl a European guitar master and one of Schalk’s influences. Schalk’s tone and phrasing on this piece are delicate and warm.
There’s also moving balladry as heard on the emotive “And Harry Said Goodbye,” dedicated to another Schalk influence, European guitar master, Harry Pepl.
From the review of Wolfgang Schalk’s album “Wanted” (2008); the guitarist from Styria, Austria, dedicated the ballad to Harry Pepl, who had died in 2005
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24 February 2009 · Review · DE
KULTUR, Zeitschrift für Kultur und Gesellschaft (Dornbirn): „JazzZwio: Live in Concerts“ (CD-Tipp)
Peter Füssl
CD recommendation by Peter Füssl in KULTUR, a cultural magazine from Vorarlberg, Austria, for the CD/DVD “Live in Concerts” (Universal, 2009). Füssl recalls the legendary JazzZwio of Pepl and Werner Pirchner between 1977 and 1985 and describes the contents: 43 minutes from the 15th Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) in 1981 and excerpts from concerts at the Szene Wien in Vienna (1983) and the Konservatoriumssaal in Innsbruck, Austria (1984), with pieces such as “The Day We Know Paul Desmond is Gone”, “Against The Wind”, “Hosent’Raga” and “Air Love And Vitamins”. He calls the two “absolute individualists” whose interplay adds up to far more than the sum of its parts, notes that so far mainly the Muthspiel brothers (the Austrian jazz musicians Christian and Wolfgang Muthspiel) have kept their memory alive, and hopes the recordings will bring the Jazzzwio wider recognition, above all among younger musicians.
Great moments of brilliantly offbeat music and gnarled humour
the playful wit of these two strong characters, one Viennese and one Tyrolean to the core, still sounds fresh as morning dew more than 25 years after the recordings were made
On the CD/DVD “Live in Concerts” (2009) with Jazzzwio concerts from 1981 to 1984; Pepl was Viennese, Werner Pirchner Tyrolean, and each brought his own regionally coloured humour into the music
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2016 · Review · DE
Jazzpodium: „Harry Pepl & Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Peter Primus Frosch, Agnes Heginger, Fullmax15-01 CD“
Alexander Schmitz
Review of the 2015 double CD in the German jazz magazine Jazzpodium, probably 2016. Schmitz recalls Le Monde's “giant of improvisation”, Scofield's “machine gun”, the Jazzzwio, Air Mail and the MIDI guitar that first made Real Time Composing possible. He describes twelve previously unreleased soliloquies from the Lonely Single Swinger Band and 13 Pepl compositions in a new guise with Clemens Salesny, Martin Bayer, Peter Primus Frosch and Agnes Heginger, with Herbert Joos, Alex Meissl and Clemens Wenger as guests.
which now brings the name of the great Viennese guitarist Harry Pepl back into public awareness with a project of equal stature
There is nothing at all to say that could even come close to capturing this late, magnificent Pepl spectacle.
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18 December 2017 · Review
Guitar Moderne (Online): „Harry Pepl: The One That Almost Got Away“
guitar moderne
Short piece in the American online magazine for adventurous guitarists. The author discovered Pepl in 1986 on the ECM (the renowned European jazz label) album “Volver” by Enrico Rava and Dino Saluzzi: his sound recalled Metheny, but with a harder attack and a freer sensibility. He recommends “Cracked Mirrors”, which still sounds fresh today.
His chorused sound and fluidity were reminiscent of Metheny, but his attack was harder and his sensibility was decidedly more “out.”
Check out “Cracked Mirror” to hear how his playing in 1988 sounds fresh even today.
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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